Deu 12:28 Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God. Though salvation
is not by the works of the law, yet the blessings which are promised to
obedience are not denied to the faithful servants of GOD.
We are to note and listen to the revealed will of the LORD, giving
our attention not to portions of it but to "all these words."
There must
be no picking and choosing but an impartial respect to all that GOD has
commanded.
This is the road of blessedness for the Father and for His
children.
The LORD's blessing is upon His chosen to the third and fourth
generation.
If they walk uprightly before Him, He will make all men
know that they are a seed which the LORD has blessed.
No blessing can
come to us or ours through dishonesty or double dealing.
The ways of
worldly conformity and unholiness cannot bring good to us or ours.
It
will go well with us when we go well before GOD.
If integrity does not
make us prosper, knavery will not.
That which gives pleasure to GOD will
bring pleasure to us. ~Charles Spurgeon~
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 found the impressive lesson,
that the choices of the past may cast a bitter and irrevocable shadow on
all our future.
When he afterward desired to inherit blessing he was rejected; for he
found no place of repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.
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.
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 to 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.
For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. 2Ch 16:9 GOD is looking for a man, or woman, whose
heart will be always set on Him, and who will trust Him for all He
desires to do. GOD is eager to work more mightily now than He ever has
through any soul. The clock of the centuries points to the eleventh
hour. The world is waiting yet to see what GOD can
do through a consecrated soul. Not the world alone, but GOD Himself is
waiting for one, who will be more fully devoted to Him than any who have
ever lived; who will be willing to be nothing that Christ may be all;
who will grasp GOD'S own purposes; and taking His humility and His
faith, His love and His power, will, without hindering, continue to let
GOD do exploits. ~C. H. P.~ There is no limit to what GOD can do with a man, providing he will not touch the glory. In
an address given to ministers and workers after his ninetieth birthday,
George Mueller spoke thus of himself: "I was converted in November,
1825, but I only came into the full surrender of the heart four years
later, in July, 1829... The love of money was gone, the love of place was
gone, the love of position was gone, the love of worldly pleasures and
engagements was gone. GOD, GOD alone became my portion. I found my all
in Him; I wanted nothing else. And by the grace of GOD this has
remained, and has made me a happy man, an exceedingly happy man, and it
led me to care only about the things of GOD. I ask affectionately, my
beloved brethren, have you fully surrendered the heart to GOD, or is
there this thing or that thing with which you are taken up irrespective
of GOD? I read a little of the Scriptures before, but preferred other
books; but since that time the revelation He has made of Himself has
become unspeakably blessed to me, and I can say from my heart, GOD is an
infinitely lovely Being. Oh, be not satisfied until in your own inmost
soul you can say, God is an infinitely lovely Being!' ~Selected~ I pray to GOD this day to make me an extraordinary Christian. ~George Whitefield~
Exo 3:12 And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
Of course, if the LORD sent
Moses on an errand, He would not let him go alone.
The tremendous risk
which it would involve and the great power it would require would render
it ridiculous for GOD to send a poor lone Hebrew to confront the
mightiest king in all the world and then leave him to himself.
It could
not be imagined that a wise GOD would match poor Moses with Pharaoh and
the enormous forces of Egypt. Hence He says, "Certainly I will be with
thee," as if it were out of the question that He would send him alone. In my case, also, the same
rule will hold good. If I go upon the LORD's errand with a simple
reliance upon His power and a single eye to His glory, it is certain
that He will be with me.
His sending me binds Him to back me up. Is not
this enough? What more can I want?
If all the angels and arch- angels
were with me. I might fail; but if He is with me, I must succeed.
Only
let me take care that I act worthily toward this promise. Let me not go
timidly, halfheartedly, carelessly, presumptuously.
What manner of
person ought he to be who has GOD with him! In such company it behoveth
me to play the man and, like Moses, go in unto Pharaoh without fear.
The LORD Jesus did come, and He did come to show in Himself the kind
of person to whom GOD would commit Himself, to whom GOD would let go
Himself.
It is a tremendous thing for such as GOD to let himself go to
someone else, commit Himself, so to speak, to put Himself into the hands
of another with perfect assurance and content and say, "I can trust
Myself with that one, I need not be reserved where they are concerned.
I
can give them My secrets, I can open up to them My hidden things, I can
trust them with blessing, with power, with scope for service, ways of
usefulness:
I know quite well self will not come in there; it is safe".
Who of us could say that of ourselves? I cannot; I do not think you can.
But what leads to this?
Is it not our deep, agonizing concern before
GOD that He will be able to commit Himself to us that we might be the
more to His glory and more used by Him?
Does that not concern you?
Do
you, with me, desire above all other things that the LORD should be able
to be with us and to make us a blessing and to use us and to open the
way before us, and not all the time to have to say, "I must go steady
there, they are taking it into their own hands to get glory for
themselves.
They have become masters instead of servants"?
Are you
concerned about that?
If you are not, of course this word has nothing
for you, but if so, surely this is a word to our hearts.
How will the
LORD commit Himself?
The LORD Jesus is the great example. He came to
show, for GOD was with Him.
That was the testimony of the apostles. He "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him" (Acts 10:38).
Oh, that is what we are after in our hearts, not the using, not the
fame, not the popularity, the publicity, no, but just that God should
get glory and have His way.
He puts His finger upon the secret - the
single eye, purity of heart. I am not, for a moment, questioning your motives.
I cannot question
my own motives as I know them on the surface.
You would all say, "All
that I am and all I have is for the Lord; it is at the Lord's disposal. I
do not want to have any secondary interest at all."
We are all like
that, but so often we are our own greatest enemies, and I am not
speaking to you about the things of which you may be conscious.
We
shall, of course, have to face things which come into this realm as we
know them; as we are able to discern them, we have to face them quite
seriously.
But I know this, that The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jer. 17:9)
Deceitful -
and we really do not always know our own motives,
And the motive is
only manifest sometimes when the LORD has given us a little extra rope
of liberty and blessing,
And then we begin to be very pleased with it
and with ourselves, instead of humbly, broken-heartedly, going down
before the LORD in worship that such as we, could ever be considered in
the realm of His using.
It is what is there. That is why I speak of
circumcision of heart, getting right down inside.
Well, the opposite to singleness, of course, is dividedness,
And you
know how often the LORD Jesus, when He was here in the flesh, used that
word "cannot",
And how often He used the phrase that is here in our
portion: "No man does this or that to things." "Men do not put new wine into old bottles" (Matt. 9:17) — two opposite things;
Men do not put a piece of new cloth upon an old garment (Matt. 9:16) - two different things.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matt. 6:24).
So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:33 These "cannots" just touch this: there can be no two things where the
LORD is concerned, only one thing, singleness of eye.
Pride and jealousy
are only forms of self-interest.
When David returned from slaying the
giant, the women came out and sang, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands" (1 Sam. 18:7).
Saul said, "They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands
And Saul eyed David from that day and forward",
eyed him with an evil eye.
He was jealous, and I think it was David's
singleness of eye that was the great characteristic of his life.
Gen 28:13 And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;
No promise is of private interpretation: it belongs not to one saint
but to all believers.
If, my brother, thou canst in faith lie down upon a
promise and take thy rest thereon, it is thine.
Where Jacob "lighted"
and tarried and rested, there he took possession. Stretching his weary
length upon the ground, with the stones of that place for his pillows,
he little fancied that he was thus entering into ownership of the land;
yet so it was.
He saw in his dream that wondrous ladder which for all
true believers unites earth and heaven, and surely where the foot of the
ladder stood he must have a right to the soil, for other wise he could
not reach the divine stair- way.
All the promises of GOD are "Yea" and
"Amen" in Christ Jesus, and as He is ours, every promise is ours if we
will but lie down upon it in restful faith. Come, weary one, use thy LORD's words as thy pillows, Lie down in
peace.
Dream only of Him. Jesus is thy ladder of light.
See the angels
coming and going upon Him between thy soul and thy GOD, and be sure that
the promise is thine own GOD-given portion and that it will not be
robbery for thee to take it to thyself, as spoken specially to thee.
