The Triumphant Power Of Life Over Death

Mark 16:6  And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.
 
Further, that stone became the symbol of the mighty, triumphant power of life over death.

We are so familiar with phrases like that that perhaps they have lost their point; but is not God constantly solving our problems along this very line?

We are looking for things to happen, and yet all the time the power of His risen life is silently working and solving so many problems.

We look back and remember how often we felt that we could not go on any longer, that we could not survive very much more, that we were at the end of our resources...

The situation was really beyond us, and some tremendous thing had to happen.

The tremendous thing we expected did not happen.

The fact is that we are going on today after many such an experience of trial and helplessness;

We have quietly been kept going on, and we are going on; we are not yet submerged and overwhelmed and put out.

That is the miracle of His Divine life silently solving the problem, dealing with so many things that seem to say, Death, an end!

The power of His resurrection is the answer to many of our problems.

We look for acts; He proceeds along the silent course of life, the mighty power of life overcoming death.

 It was not possible says the Word, that he should be holden of it (death) (Acts 2:24).

They were saying, 'It is impossible for us to deal with this stone, this situation!' 

He was saying, 'It is not possible for death to hold Me'.

There are two ways of viewing the impossible. Everything depends upon where you put the impossibility - on the thing or on God.

The things which are not possible with men are possible with God (Matt. 19:26).

And He answers these impossible things in the normal way - for it is the normal way;

The abnormal would be by signs and wonders and extraordinary happenings: demonstrations to our senses;

But the normal way in the Christian life is the way of the continuous transcendence of His life over the working of death. 

That miracle is far more general than we recognize.

You have to live your life and do your work in a sphere of spiritual death where everything is against spiritual life, and there is nothing to support you at all...

And yet you go on there in the Lord, and are not swallowed up, engulfed and destroyed by that atmosphere and by those conditions.

That is the miracle of Divine life working silently.

Yours, then, is a life - as is the life of everyone - set in the presence of the great stone of death, spiritual death.

We know it, and yet we are preserved alive spiritually and we go on.

That is the great miracle. It is the miracle of every day.

That is the testimony that God raised Him from the dead. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

Seekers, Finders

We need our GOD; He is to be had for the seeking, and He will not deny Himself to any one of us if we personally seek His face. 

It is not if thou deserve Him, or purchase His favor, but merely if thou "seek" Him.

Those who already know the LORD must go on seeking His face by prayer, by diligent service, and by holy gratitude: to such He will not refuse His favor and fellowship.

Those who, as yet, have not known Him to their souls' rest should at once commence seeking and never cease till they find Him as their Savior, their Friend, their Father, and their GOD. 

What strong assurance this promise gives to the seeker! "He that seeketh findeth."

You, yes you, if you seek your GOD shall find Him.

When you find Him you have found life, pardon, sanctification, preservation, and glory.

Will you not seek, and seek on, since you shall not seek in vain' Dear friend, seek the LORD at once.

Here is the place, and now is the time. Bend that stiff knee; yes, bend that stiffer neck, and cry out for GOD, for the living GOD. 

In the name of Jesus, seek cleansing and justification. You shall not be refused.

Here is David's testimony to his son Solomon, and it is the writer's personal witness to the reader.

Believe it and act upon it, for Christ's sake.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Beware Of Spiritual Deterioration!

Jdg 16:20  And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.

Beware of unconscious deterioration!

Grey hairs may be here and there upon us without our knowing it.

The LORD may be gone out on feet so noiseless, that we are not aware that His Spirit has glided along the corridor, and through the doorway, whispering, Let us depart.

Deterioration is unconscious because it is so gradual.

The rot that sets in on autumn fruit is very gradual. The damp that silences the violin or piano does its work almost imperceptibly.

Satan is too knowing to plunge us into some outrageous sin at a bound.

He has sappers and miners engaged long before the explosion, in hollowing subterranean passages through the soul, and filling them with explosives.

Spiritual declension blunts our sensibility.

The first act of the burglar is to gag the voice that might alarm, and poison the watch-dog.

So, sin blinds our eyes, and dulls our keen alertness to the presence of evil.

Thus, the stages of our relapse are obvious to all eyes but our own.

We are drugged as we are being carried off captives.

The progress of evil within us is a matter of unconsciousness, largely because we are quick to discover reasons to justify our decadence.

We gloze over the real state of affairs. We call sins by other names.

We insist on considerations which in our eyes appear to justify our conduct.

We still attend to our religious duties, and try to persuade ourselves that it is with us as in times past.

To avoid deterioration we must ever watch and pray, and realize that we are the temple of the Holy Ghost.

Then shall the peace of GOD as a sentry guard our hearts and our thoughts in Christ Jesus.

~F. B. Meyer~

He Lowers To Raise

All my changes come from Him who never changes. If I had grown rich, I should have seen His hand in it, and I should have praised Him; let me equally see His hand if I am made poor, and let me as heartily praise Him. 

When we go down in the world, it is of the LORD, and so we may take it patiently: when we rise in the world, it is of the LORD, and we may accept it thankfully.

In any case, the LORD hath done it, and it is well.

It seems that Jehovah's way is to lower those whom He means to raise and to strip those whom He intends to clothe.

If it is His way, it is the wisest and best way.

If I am now enduring the bringing low, I may well rejoice, because I see in it the preface to the lifting up.

The more we are humbled by grace, the more we shall be exalted in glory.

That impoverishment which will be overruled for our enrichment is to be welcomed.

O LORD, Thou has taken me down of late and made me feel my insignificance and sin.

It is not a pleasant experience, but I pray Thee make it a profitable one to me.

Oh, that Thou wouldst thus fit me to bear a greater weight of delight and of usefulness; and when I am ready for it, then grant it to me, for Christ's sake! 

Amen.

~Charles Spurgeon~

PRESS ON!

Php 3:13  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 

Php 3:14  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

The LORD desires us to go on. Sometimes going on means loneliness in going on where others cannot go with us. 

That means a price is bound up with obedience.

It may mean a big break, a big change. 

It is the challenge of whether we are adjustable before the LORD.

Our adjustability is the proof of our utterness for the LORD.

That proof being there, the LORD is able to bring us on into all His thought.

Let us remember always that we shall never get to a place while we are here where there is not some higher level and some greater fullness of Christ.

There will always be yet another step, and perhaps another after that, higher on.

Let us have our hearts set upon reaching all. 

The LORD will so graduate things as to make the challenge not too severe.

He takes us a step at a time, and He does not want us to take six steps at a bound, or to contemplate six steps at a time.

He shows us our next step, and that is all we have to be concerned about now.

The other steps will come at the right time. 

Every step prepares us for the next.

Very often our lives are like mountain climbing. You see from below to a certain height, and that seems to be the top, and you make for it. 

And when you get to it, you see a little further on that there is another top.

You think that must be the very top, and so you make for it, and when you get to it there is something still further.

You never do seem to get to the top! But we shall arrive at last.

The LORD hides the other things and says: Now, that is your next step; obey that and fuller revelation will come after that.

Those of us who look back and see how terrible a thing it would have been if the LORD had shown us at one time all that to which we have been brought, know that if we had seen it all at one time, we could not have gone on.

We see that He brought us by stages, and today we are not ungrateful for the price paid, in view of the measure of Christ which we enjoy and the greater fullness of revelation.

Let us ask the LORD to put into us the spirit of His servant: “Not that I have already obtained it... but one thing I do... I press on....”

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Blessing Of The Lion

1Sa 17:34  And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock:

It is a source of inspiration and strength to come in touch with the youthful David, trusting GOD.

Through faith in GOD he conquered a lion and a bear, and afterwards overthrew the mighty Goliath. 

When that lion came to despoil that flock, it came as a wondrous opportunity to David.

If he had failed or faltered he would have missed GOD'S opportunity for him and probably would never have come to be GOD'S chosen king of Israel. "And there came a lion."

One would not think that a lion was a special blessing from GOD; one would think that only an occasion of alarm.

The lion was GOD'S opportunity in disguise. Every difficulty that presents itself to us, if we receive it in the right way, is GOD'S opportunity.

Every temptation that comes is GOD'S opportunity.

When the "lion" comes, recognize it as GOD'S opportunity no matter how rough the exterior.

The very tabernacle of GOD was covered with badgers' skins and goats' hair; one would not think there would be any glory there.

The Shekinah of GOD was manifest under that kind of covering. May GOD open our eyes to see Him, whether in temptations, trials, dangers, or misfortunes.

~C. H. P.~

Jesus Knew Who Would Betray Him

John 13:18-22. Christ foretells that one of the twelve shall betray him.

The Lord Jesus had just given his disciples a proof of his love by washing their feet.

Now he gave them a proof of his omniscience. He showed them that he knew all things, by foretelling who should betray him.

Had he intended to convince them at that moment of his wisdom, he would have revealed the past secrets of their lives, as he once had done to the woman of Samaria.

He told her so much of her past life, that she said to her townsmen, "Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did."

But on this occasion he sought rather to strengthen the disciples' faith in a trying hour that was approaching.

He knew that the betrayal of Judas would tend to shake their faith.

He knew that they might be tempted to think..."If our Master were the Son of GOD, he would have known that Judas sought to betray him, and he would have hid himself in some secret retreat."

Therefore he told them beforehand; as he said, "Now I tell you before it comes, that when it comes to pass, you may believe that I am he."

For the same reason he has foretold many events that are now coming to pass.

He has declared, "Many shall be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another."

Whenever hypocrites are detected, instead of being staggered by the discovery, we ought to be confirmed in the faith, and to think, "Did not Jesus say that there should be many who would call him LORD, but who would work iniquity?"

Can we conceive what our feelings would be, if we could foresee what would befall those around us? 

How would our hearts be pained by the thought, "This dear brother will languish long under a tormenting disease. This beloved sister will lose the children that are now smiling on her knees."

But how much more should we be grieved, if we could foresee that some who seem to be faithful followers of Jesus would finally betray him, and perish forever.

What, then, must have been the feelings of the compassionate Savior, when he looked around and beheld the face of one who would soon plunge into the depth of crime, and sink into the abyss of misery! 

He was troubled in spirit, and testified, saying, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.

He still grieves over the sorrows that he foresees.

When he looks down upon us, he sees the way that we shall take.

Among the guests at the sacramental table he can distinguish those who will sell their birthright, from those who will inherit his kingdom.

Those who do not love their Master, will not always follow him. 

Judas found it easy to walk with Jesus when an admiring throng tracked his steps; but when circumstances were altered he changed his plan, and found it more convenient to betray him.

There are seasons when the way of godliness appears even to the worldly-minded a pleasant and a glorious path; but these seasons do not last.

A time arrives, sooner or later, when the path becomes steep and rugged; then the unconverted man turns aside into some by-way.

He goes after the world he had forsaken, and seeks for a share in its smiles.

At first, perhaps, he does not leave the assemblies of the saints. 

Like Judas, he may be found by turns in the councils of the ungodly, and in the society of the believers.

Is there any one among us who is secretly siding with Christ's enemies, while he appears to be his friend?

With what compassion Jesus regards such a miserable creature!

He foresees the sorrows that his sins will bring upon him.

He knows what remorse will one day tear him; what despair will take hold of him!

~Favell Lee Mortimer~ (1802—1878)