Night Of Pure Faith

Gen 15:12  And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

The sun at last went down, and the swift, eastern night cast its heavy veil over the scene.

Worn out with the mental conflict, the watchings, and the exertions of the day, Abraham fell into a deep sleep, and in that sleep is soul was oppressed with a dense and dreadful darkness, such as almost stifled him, and lay like a nightmare upon his heart.

Do you understand something of the horror of that darkness?

When some terrible sorrow which seems so hard to reconcile with perfect love, crushes down upon the soul, wringing from it all its peaceful rest in the pitifulness of God, and launching it on a sea unlit by a ray of hope;

When unkindness, and cruelty maltreat the trusting heart, till it begins to doubt whether there be a God overhead who can see and still permit...these know something of the "horror of great darkness."

It is thus that human life is made up; brightness and gloom; shadow and sun; long tracks of cloud, succeeded by brilliant glints of light...

And amid all Divine justice is working out its own schemes, affecting others equally with the individual soul which seems the subject of special discipline.

O ye who are filled with the horror of great darkness because of God's dealings with mankind, learn to trust that infallible wisdom, which is co-assessor with immutable justice;

And know that He who passed through the horror of the darkness of Calvary, with the cry of forsakenness, is ready to bear you company through the valley of the shadow of death till you see the sun shining upon its further side.

Let us, by our Forerunner, send forward our anchor, Hope, within the veil that parts us from the unseen; where it will grapple in ground and will not yield, but hold until the day dawns, and we follow it into the haven guaranteed to us by God's immutable counsel.

~F. B. Meyer~

The disciples thought that that angry sea separated them from Jesus. Nay, some of them thought worse than that;

They thought that the trouble that had come upon them was a sign that Jesus had forgotten all about them, and did not care for them.

Oh, dear friend, that is when troubles have a sting, when the devil whispers, "God has forgotten you; God has forsaken you"; when your unbelieving heart cries as Gideon cried, "If the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us?"

The evil has come upon you to bring the Lord nearer to you. 

The evil has not come upon you to separate you from Jesus, but to make you cling to Him more faithfully, more tenaciously, more simply.

~F. S. Webster, M.A.~

Never should we so abandon ourselves to God as when He seems to have abandoned us.

Let us enjoy light and consolation when it is His pleasure to give it to us, but let us not attach ourselves to His gifts, but to Himself;

And when He plunges us into the night of pure faith, let us still press on through the agonizing darkness.

Oh, for faith that brings the triumph When defeat seems strangely near!

Oh, for faith that brings the triumph Into victory's ringing cheer...

Faith triumphant; knowing not defeat or fear.

~Herbert Booth~

Full Salvation

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

Many years since I saw that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." I began by following after it and inciting all with whom I had communication to do the same. 

Ten years after, God gave me a clearer view than I ever had before of the way to obtain it; namely, by faith in the Son of God.

And immediately I declared to all, "We are saved from sin, we are made holy by faith." This I testified in private, in public, and in print, and God confirmed it by a thousand witnesses. 

I have continued to declare this for above thirty years, and God has continued to confirm my work. 

~John Wesley in 1771~

I knew Jesus, and He was very precious to my soul; but I found something in me that would not keep sweet and patient and kind.

I did what I could to keep it down, but it was there.

I besought Jesus to do something for me, and, when I gave Him my will, He came to my heart, and took out all that would not be sweet, all that would not be kind, all that would not be patient, and then HE shut the door.

~George Fox~

My whole heart has not one single grain, this moment, of thirst after approbation. I feel alone with God; He fills the void; I have not one wish, one will, one desire, but in Him; He hath set my feet in a large room.

I have wondered and stood amazed that God should make a conquest of all within me by love.

~Lady Huntington~

All at once I felt as though a hand...not feeble, but omnipotent; not of wrath, but of love-was laid on my brow. 

I felt it not outwardly but inwardly. It seemed to press upon my whole being, and to diffuse all through me a holy, sin-consuming energy.

As it passed downward, my heart as well as my head was conscious of the presence of this soul-cleansing energy, under the influence of which I fell to the floor, and in the joyful surprise of the moment, cried out in a loud voice.

Still the hand of power wrought without and within; and wherever it moved, it seemed to leave the glorious influence of the Saviour's image.

For a few minutes the deep ocean of God's love swallowed me up; all its waves and billows rolled over me.

~Bishop Hamline~

Holiness...as I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it-appeared to me to be of a sweet, calm, pleasant, charming, serene nature, which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness, ravishment to the soul; 

In other words, that it made the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant fruits and flowers, all delightful and undisturbed, enjoying a sweet calm and the gentle living beams of the sun.

~Jonathan Edwards~

Love's resistless current sweeping All the regions deep within; Thought and wish and senses keeping Now, and every instant clean:
      
Full salvation! Full salvation! From the guilt and power of sin.

In Their Affliction They Will Seek Me Early

Losses and adversities are frequently the means which the great Shepherd uses to fetch home his wandering sheep; like fierce dogs they worry the wanderers back to the fold.

There is no making lions tame if they are too well fed; they must be brought down from their great strength, and their stomachs must be lowered, and then they will submit to the tamer’s hand;
 
And often have we seen the Christian rendered obedient to the Lord’s will by straitness of bread and hard labour.

When rich and increased in goods many professors carry their heads much too loftily, and speak exceeding boastfully.

Like David, they flatter themselves, “My mountain standeth fast; I shall never be moved.”

When the Christian groweth wealthy, is in good repute, hath good health, and a happy family, he too often admits Mr. Carnal Security to feast at his table, and then if he be a true child of God there is a rod preparing for him.
 
Wait awhile, and it may be you will see his substance melt away as a dream. There goes a portion of his estate...how soon the acres change hands.

That debt, that dishonoured bill...how fast his losses roll in, where will they end?

It is a blessed sign of divine life if when these embarrassments occur one after another he begins to be distressed about his backslidings, and betakes himself to his God.

Blessed are the waves that wash the mariner upon the rock of salvation! Losses in business are often sanctified to our soul’s enriching.

If the chosen soul will not come to the Lord full-handed, it shall come empty.

If God, in his grace, findeth no other means of making us honour him among men, he will cast us into the deep;

If we fail to honor him on the pinnacle of riches, he will bring us into the valley of poverty. 

Yet faint not, heir of sorrow, when thou art thus rebuked, rather recognize the loving hand which chastens, and say, “I will arise, and go unto my Father.”

~Charles Spurgeon~

A Loving Purpose

Psalm 35:27  Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. 

What is "prosperity?" Is it threads of life weaved into a bright outcome? a full cup? ample riches? worldly applause? an unbroken circle?

No! these are often a snare; received without gratitude; dimming the soul to its nobler destinies. 

Often spiritually, it rather means God taking us by the hand into the lowly Valleys of Humiliation; leading us as He did His servant Job of old; out of his sheep, oxen, camels, health, wealth, children; in order that we may be brought before Him in the dust, and say, "Blessed be His holy name! 

Yes! The very reverse of what is generally known in the world as Prosperity... forms the background on which the Rainbow of Promise is seen.

God smiles on us through these rainbows and teardrops of sorrows!

He loves us too well. He has too great an interest in our spiritual welfare to permit us to live on in what is misnamed "Prosperity."

When He sees duties languidly performed, or coldly neglected, the heart deadened, and love to Himself congealed by the absorbing power of the present world...He puts a thorn in our nest to drive us to the wing and prevent our being grovelers forever!

I may not be able now to understand the mystery of these dealings. I may be asking through the tears, "Why this unkind arrest on my earthly happiness? 

Why so premature a lopping of my boughs of promise? Why such a speedy withering of my most cherished gourd?"

The answer is plain. It is your soul's prosperity which He has in view.

Believe it — your true Ebenezers will yet be raised close by your Zarephaths (the place of furnace).

His afflictions are no arbitrary appointments. There is righteous necessity in all that He does.

As He lays His chastening hand upon you, and leads you by ways you know not, and which you never would have chosen...He whispers the gentle accents in your ear, "Beloved I wish above all things that you would prosper even as your soul prospers."

Rest in the quiet consciousness that all is well.

Murmur at nothing which brings you nearer to His own loving Presence. Be thankful for your very cares, because you can confidently cast them all upon Him.

He has both your temporal and eternal "prosperity" too much at heart to appoint one superfluous pang, one needless stroke.

Commit therefore, all that concerns you to His safe keeping, and leave it there!

~John Macduff~

What Does The Church Exist For?

John 1:12  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

John 1:13  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 

What, in the thought of God do Christians exist for? What does the Church exist for?

There is only one answer.

The existence and the function is to be an expression of Christ.

There is nothing less and nothing more than that.

Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and all between!

Let that be the starting point; let that be the governing rule and reality in all matters of life and work, and see at once the nature and vocation of the Church.

This vast, incomprehensible heavenly system, of which Christ is the personal embodiment, touches every detail of life, personally and collectively.

But remember only the Holy Spirit sees and knows how it is so;

Hence, as at the beginning, there has to be an utter submission to and direction by the Lordship of the Holy Spirit.

What the bloodstream is to the human body, the Divine Life is to and in "the Church which is His body."

What the nerve system is in the physical realm, the Holy Spirit is in the spiritual.

Understand all the workings of those two systems in the natural, and you begin to see how God has written His great heavenly principles, first in the person of His Son, and then in His corporate Body.

As an individual believer is the result of a begetting, a conception, a formation, a birth and a likeness, so, in the New Testament, is a true church.

It is a reproduction of Christ by the Holy Spirit.

Man cannot make, form, produce or "establish" this. Neither can anyone "join" or "enroll," or make himself or herself a member of this organism.

First it is an embryo, and then a "formation" after Christ.

The beginning is in a seeing of Christ.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Revelation In Relation To Power

We stand by revelation, God who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

God called me through grace to reveal His Son in me.

Gal 1:16  To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

How are we going to be made to stand, to be established?
How is this endurance going to be put in us?

By knowing the Lord Jesus in this inward way, by revelation.

The people who are going to stand are those in whom this thing has become a living revelation; "God hath shined in our hearts," this is one side.

The other is, "pressed on every side, perplexed, pursued, smitten down... yet not unto despair" - 2 Cor. 4:6-10.

We are troubled and pressed down...why? "That the LIFE of JESUS might be made manifest in our mortal bodies" - 2 Cor. 4:11.

Is not that endurance? Pressed on every side yet not strangled!

In pressure Thou hast enlarged me

Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. Psalm 4:1

What was meant to be "pressed down," God has made for enlargement.

Cast down, yet a wonderful rising up. Why? How?

It is "God who hath shined in our hearts...in the face of Jesus Christ," therefore you can go through and survive.
 
Nothing can carry us through but the revelation of the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit in our hearts; an inside knowledge of Him - not mental assent to a creed or a doctrine, but a living, vital reality in our very being.

For strength to overcome and press on, only a revelation by the Holy Spirit in us can suffice - but it can!

A revelation that is within one's spirit and not a mental appreciation of truth even though it is truth about God.
 
Oh, the power to be able to say "I KNOW," not I have heard or read, but "I KNOW".

It is an experience nothing can rob us of.

It is absolutely essential to have this revelation by the Holy Spirit because we have to meet forces of evil against which nothing can stand save that which is of God.

In pressure Thou hast enlarged me. How? Because of the constant uprising of THE LIFE within.

Trouble, trial, sorrow...we are subject to these things, they are common to all men, but we rise above them through the strength of His might within.

We are strong because of the Light given in the knowledge of God.

The enemy mightily withstands revelation; to mar or hinder that, he'll stop at nothing!

Light and Strength go together; endurance is by revelation, "I know".

Establishment in the truth by revelation of the truth, this brings an impact on Satan and his hosts; light leading to might.

When the Lord opens eyes you see what happens, "the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that ye may know" this is the result of opened eyes.

2Co 4:14  Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.

I send thee to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God.
 
Act 26:18  To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Paul was sent by the Lord Jesus with a message to open the eyes of the people that would turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to their inheritance in God; this, the inheritance of eyes being opened.
 
Sovereignty follows opened eyes.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Fire Of Provocation

Luke 12:49  I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? 

It was the fire of inevitable provocation.

No sooner had the Spirit come, the fire fallen and begun to move over the earth, than there was tremendous and terrific uprising of antagonism.

It is inevitable. If you and I are going to be men and women of the Spirit, we are not going to have an easy time. Hell will see to that.

At once the clash arises and it is true that the more the Holy Spirit is able to have His way in us and to lead us into all the will of God, the more we find this opposition, this antagonism. 

And it not only comes between us and the world, it sometimes comes in the circle of the Lord's own people.

It is inevitable provocation.

You wonder why, sometimes.

As you read the New Testament you wonder, What is the matter with these people?

Why should they be so upset and so annoyed? 

And why should it be so spontaneous, this thing? And persistent; so unreasonable?', but there it is.

There is the fact. It is inevitable.

You see, this thing that the Lord came to do and is doing, will not allow for any neutrality.

It is going to be one thing or the other. It is going to be for or against.

The eyes of flame (here the fire comes in again) the eyes of flame will not allow lukewarmness or anything that is of the Laodicean character. 

The fire is a positive element always, and it will create positive situations.

If everything is all just nice and quiet, no disturbance, no trouble and no antagonism and opposition, you have reason to question whether the Holy Spirit is doing much, because He does aim at such a positiveness, which is a very, very costly thing.

It is either with the Lord, or not with the Lord, and there is nothing between.

It is going to come out sooner or later and be precipitated.

Now, the Lord says that is what He came to do. 

This is not an accident, a chance or things having gone wrong or miscarried.

This is exactly what He came to do - to scatter fire on the earth and these are the inevitable effects of the fire. They are going to work out.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Spirit Testing The Money

Are there not many who say all their money is their Lord's, and that they hold it as His stewards, to dispose of it as He directs, and yet who, in the amount they spend on God's work, as compared with that on themselves, and in accumulating for the future, prove that stewardship is but another name for ownership?

Without being exactly guilty of the sin of Judas, or Caiaphas, or Pilate, in crucifying our Lord, a believer may yet partake with them in the spirit in which he acts.

Even so we may be grieving the Holy Ghost, even while we condemn the sin of Ananias, by giving way to the spirit in which he acted, and withholding from God what we have professed to give Him.

~Andrew Murray~

The One True Aim In Living

We Have The One True Aim In Living When We Do What GOD Sent Us Here To Do!

                                                                                

How Can They Escape?

The Lord sees His poor scattered pilgrims traveling through a valley of tears...journeying through a waste-howling wilderness...

A path beset with baits, traps, and snares in every direction.

How can they escape?

Why, the Lord 'keeps their feet'. He carries them through every rough place...as a tender parent carries a little child.

When about to fall...He graciously lays His everlasting arms underneath them.

And when tottering and stumbling, and their feet ready to slip...He mercifully upholds them from falling altogether.

But do you think that He has not different ways for different feet?

The God of creation has not made two flowers, nor two leaves upon a tree alike...and will He cause all His people to walk in precisely the same path?

No. We have...each our path, each our troubles, each our trials, each peculiar traps and snares laid for our feet.

And the wisdom of the all-wise God is shown by His eyes being in every place...marking the footsteps of every pilgrim...

Suiting His remedies to meet their individual case and necessity - appearing for them when nobody else could do them any good...

Watching so tenderly over them, as though the eyes of His affection were bent on one individual and carefully noting the goings of each...

As though all the powers of the Godhead were concentrated on that one person to keep him from harm!

~J. C. Philpot~

Refreshing Sleep

Psalm 127:2  It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

Ours is not a life of anxious care but of happy faith.

Our heavenly Father will supply the wants of His own children, and He knoweth what we have need of before we ask Him.

We may therefore go to our beds at the proper hour and not wear ourselves out by sitting up late to plot, and plan, and contrive.

If we have learned to rely upon our God, we shall not lie awake with fear gnawing at our hearts; but we shall leave our care with the Lord, our meditation of Him shall be sweet, and He will give us refreshing sleep.

To be the Lord's beloved is the highest possible honor, and he who has it may feel that ambition itself could desire no more, and therefore every selfish wish may go to sleep.

What more is there even in heaven than the love of God?

Rest, then, O soul, for thou hast all things.

Yet we toss to and fro unless the Lord Himself gives us not only the reasons for rest but rest itself.

Yea, He doth this.

Jesus Himself is our peace, our rest, our all, On His bosom we sleep in perfect security, both in life and in death.

Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood, I lay me down to rest As in the embraces of my God, Or on my Saviour's breast.

~Charles Spurgeon~