Spiritual Weakness Made Manifest By Testing Circumstances

This is a period during which Israel was particularly menaced by the Philistines.

They are always the shadow over Israel's life;

Immediately Israel's weakness and helplessness was related to the Philistines.

The Philistines brought out and made manifest Israel's weakness and helplessness.

The Lord usually has some particular thing by which a state or condition is revealed.

It is not always recognizable as a state in itself.

There has to be something that brings it out.

Because of this or that, the real condition of things is manifested...

And it would not be recognized apart from that instrument that the Lord uses to disclose exactly what the state is.

It becomes positive, rather than abstract, by reason of certain things.

The Lord will, for instance create a situation...

An experience...

A difficulty...

A concrete challenge...

And then the inability to meet it...

To deal with it.
                                                
That shows that that particular thing, which under other circumstances...

If things had been different...

Would have counted for nothing...

Would have at once been conquered and subdued...

Has now become the Lord's means of showing how bad the spiritual state is.

The Lord has a way of doing that.
 
When Israel came into the right position and condition under David, the Phil­istines did not count for anything;

They lost all significance.

But here they are very significant...

They do occupy a very dominant place...

And that is only because of the spiritual state of the Lord's people.

So, spiritual weakness is here made manifest by means of the Philistines.

We have to ask why it was that Israel was helpless before the Philistines.

Why was it that their weakness...

Their deplorable condition...

Was manifested in the presence of the Philistines...

Who otherwise would not have signified anything?

When you dig down for your answer, you find that it was because there was so much in common between Israel and the Philistines.

They had so much in common really deep down underneath.

The Philistines are known to us by a certain epithet...

The 'uncircumcised Philistines'.
 
David used that phrase concerning Goliath of Gath,"this uncircumcised Philistine" (1 Sam. 17:36).

But when you look at Israel, that was really their spiritual state.
They were uncircumcised in heart.
 
They were called the Lord's people, and in a sense, traditionally they were.

They had the ordinances, even the ordinances of circumcision...

But it was all outward.

Paul draws that very distinct line of discrimination...

Between the outward circumcision, which he calls the concision...

And the inward circumcision of the heart.

He says it is the latter that makes us Israelites in truth, not the former (Rom. 2:25-29).

Here you find Israel in exactly that position...

Uncircumcised in heart.

The fact that they said,"Make us a king... like all the nations" (1 Sam. 8:5)...

Showed that the thing which was common to the nations had come into their hearts.

They wanted to be like the other nations;

That is, the spirit of the world had come inside...

And thus they knew nothing of what Paul called "the circumcision of Christ";

Not "the putting away of the filth of the flesh" (1 Pet. 3:21), but the putting away of the old man entirely.

There was deep down something quite in common in Israel and the Philistines...

And that being so, that had to be ex­posed and the world exposed their weakness.

It is like that with a church, with a Christian community, or with a Christendom, which is really worldly in spirit, in principle or in method.

It is the world that exposes their weakness and shows how helpless they are.

The world, like the Philistines, laughs at them and says...

You don't count for anything;

You are not to be taken seriously;

We do not consider that we owe very much to you or that we are to take you seriously.'

The world laughs at the church and the Christian who, in principle, has that which is in common with itself.

The world says, 'We can do your job better than you can.'

So we find that the world is very largely the instrument of exhibiting or exposing the weakness of Christians...

Simply because there is that common basis.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Mountains Turned To Plains

Zec 4:7  Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.

At this hour a mountain of difficulty, distress, or necessity may be in our way...

And natural reason sees no path over it, or through it, or round it.

Let faith come in, and straightway the mountain disappears and becomes a plain.

But faith must first hear the word of the LORD--"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts." 

This grand truth is a prime necessity for meeting the insurmountable trials of life.

I see that I can do nothing and that all reliance on man is vanity. 

Not by might...I see that no visible means can be relied on...

But the force is in the invisible Spirit. 

God alone must work, and men and means must be nothing accounted of. 

If it be so that the Almighty God takes up the concerns of His people, then great mountains are nothing.

He can remove worlds as boys toss balls about or drive them with their foot. 

This power He can lend to me.

If the LORD bids me move an Alp I can do it through His name. 

It may be a great mountain, but even before my feebleness it shall become a plain; for the LORD hath said it. 

What can I be afraid of with God on my side?

~Charles Spurgeon~

"We Would See Jesus"

                                                   
When any great blessing is awaiting us, the devil is sure to try and make it so disagreeable to us that we shall miss it.

It is a good thing to know him as a liar, and remember, when he is trying to prejudice us strongly against any cause, that very likely the greatest blessing of our life lies there.

Spurgeon once said that the best evidence that God was on our side is the devil's growl, and we are generally pretty safe in following a thing according to Satan's dislike for it.

Beloved, take care, lest in the very line where your prejudices are setting you off from God's people and God's truth, you are missing the treasures of your life.

Take the treasures of heaven no matter how they come to you, even if it be as earthly treasures generally are, like the kernel inside the rough shell, or the gem in the bosom of the hard rock.

I have seen Jesus and my heart is dead to all beside, I have seen Jesus, and my wants are all, in Him, supplied.

I have seen Jesus, and my heart, at last, is satisfied, Since I've seen Jesus.

~A. B. Simpson~

Instant Obedience!

Gen 17:23  And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God had said unto him.

Instant obedience is the only kind of obedience there is...

Delayed obedience is disobedience. 

Every time God calls us to any duty, He is offering to make a covenant with us...

Doing the duty is our part...

And He will do His part in special blessing.

The only way we can obey is to obey "in the selfsame day," as Abraham did. 

To be sure, we often postpone a duty and then later on do it as fully as we can.

It is better to do this than not to do it at all. 

But it is then, at the best, only a crippled, disfigured, half-way sort of duty-doing...

And a postponed duty never can bring the full blessing that God intended, and that it would have brought if done at the earliest possible moment.

It is a pity to Rob ourselves, along with Robbing God and others, by Procrastination.

In the selfsame day is the Genesis way of saying, "Do It Now."

~Messages for the Morning Watch~

Luther says that a true believer will crucify the question, Why?

He will obey without questioning.

I will not be one of those who, except they see signs and wonders, will in no wise believe.

I will obey without questioning.

Ours not to make reply...

Ours not to reason why...

Ours but to do and die.

Obedience is the fruit of faith...

Patience, the bloom on the fruit.

~Christina Rossetti~

Perhaps YOU Have DISOBEYED Some CLEAR Command

Sometimes a soul comes to its spiritual adviser, speaking thus:

"I have no conscious joy, and have had but little for years."

"Did you once have it?" 

"Yes, for some time after my conversion to God." 

"Are you conscious of having refused obedience to some distinct command, which came into your life, but from which you shrank?"

Then the face is cast down, and the eyes film with tears, and the answer comes with difficulty:

"Yes, years ago I used to think that God required a certain thing of me; but I felt I could not do what He wished, was uneasy for some time about it, but after a while it seemed to fade from my mind, and now it does not often trouble me."

"Ah, soul, that is where you went wrong, and you will never get right till you go right back through the weary years to the point where you did drop the thread of obedience, and perform that one thing which God demanded of you so long ago, but on account of which you did leave the narrow track of implicit obedience."

Is not this the cause of depression to thousands of Christian people?

They are God's children, but they are disobedient children.

The Bible rings with one long demand for obedience.

The key-word of the Book of Deuteronomy is, Observe and Do.

The burden of Christ's Farewell Discourse is, If ye love me, keep My commandments.

We must not question or reply or excuse ourselves.

We must not pick and choose our way.

We must not take some commands and reject others.

We must not think that obedience in other directions will compensate for disobedience in some one particular.

God gives one command at a time, borne in upon us, not in one way only, but in many; by this He tests us.

If we obey in this, He will flood our soul with blessing, and lead us forward into new paths and pastures.

But if we refuse in this we shall remain stagnant and waterlogged, make no progress in Christian experience, and lack both power and joy.

~Andrew Murray~

The Arm Of The Lord~The Vindication Of A Course Taken

Now, I find that the first thing that is meant by the Arm of the Lord on behalf of His people is this...

It means the vindication of the course that they have taken.

If you turn to your Bible with that in mind, you will find how much there is that gathers around it.

You will agree that it is a very important matter, that the course that we have taken should be proved at the end to have been the right one.

There could be nothing more terrible and tragic than that having taken a course...

And given ourselves and all that we have to it...

Poured out our lives in it and for it...

We should find at the end that we have been wrong...

And that the Lord is not able to vindicate the course that we have taken. 

It is plainly of the utmost importance that the course that we have taken should, in the end, receive the Divine approval...

That over against everything, in spite of everything, from men and from demons, God should be able to say: 'That man was right!'

That, after all, was the vindication of Job, was it not? How much that man met of misconstruction and misrepresentation! 

But in the end God said, 'My servant Job is right'; and it is no small thing to have God say that. 

In Isaiah 53 it is that: the vindication of a course taken, in spite of everything. 

And that 'in spite of everything' amounts to a good deal in that chapter, does it not?

An overwhelming weight of contradiction and misunderstanding;

But, in the end, the Servant is vindicated; 

God says He was right. 

To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

To that One - to that One!

That thought runs everywhere through the Bible, in relation to all the great men of faith, as they walked with God. 

What a difficult way they went! 

But in the end, God said, not in word only, but in very, very practical vindication, 'He was right, he was right.'

That is the meaning of the Arm of the Lord.

That is what I want when I ask for the Arm of the Lord:

O Lord, that I may take such a way with You that, in the end, You may be able to stand by that way and say: He was right.' 

Do you want that?

There is no value in anything that does not work out like that. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

Dear Friends, Why Do You Make Your House Like Hell?

Dear friends, why do you make your house like Hell? 

A traveler one day called at a cottage to ask for a drink of water.

Entering, he found the parents cursing and quarreling, with the children trembling and crouched in a corner. 

Wherever he looked, he saw only marks of degradation and misery. 

Greeting the family, he asked them, "Dear friends, why do you make your house like Hell?"

Ah, Sir, said the man, "you don't know the life and trials of a poor man!"

Do what I can - "everything goes wrong!"

The stranger drank the water, and then said softly (as he noticed a Bible in a dark and dusty corner)...

Dear friends, I know what would help you, if you could find it.

There is a treasure concealed in your house... search for it.

And so he left them.

At first the cottagers thought it a jest, but, after a while they began to reflect.

The whole family tried to find the "treasure" but in vain.

Increasing poverty brought only more quarrels, discontent, and strife.

One day, as the woman was thinking upon the stranger's words...her eye fell on the old Bible. 

It had been a gift from her mother, but since her death long ago it had been unheeded and unused.

A strange foreboding seized her mind. 

Could the stranger have meant the Bible?

She took it from the shelf, opened it, and found the verse inscribed on the title-page, in her mother's handwriting, "The law of your mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver." 

It cut her to the heart. 

Ah! thought she, "this is the treasure which we have been seeking!" 

How her tears fell fast upon the pages!

From that time she read the Bible every day, and taught the children to pray...but without her husband's knowledge. 

One day he came home, as usual, quarrelsome and in a rage. 

Instead of meeting his angry words with angry replies...she spoke to him kindly and with gentleness. 

Husband, said she, "we have sinned grievously."

We have ourselves to blame for all this misery, and we must now lead a different life.

He looked amazed.

What are you talking about? was his exclamation.

She brought the old Bible, and, sobbing, cried, Here is the treasure. 

See, I have found it!

The husband's heart was moved. 

She read to him of the Lord Jesus, and of His love.

She continued to read the Scriptures daily, as she sat with the children around her, thoughtful and attentive.

So time went on.

It was a year later that the stranger returned that way.

Seeing the cottage, he remembered the circumstances of his visit, and thought he would call and see this family again. 

He did so, but he would scarcely have known the place...it was so clean, so neat, so well ordered. 

He opened the door, and at first thought he was mistaken, for the family came to meet him so kindly, with the peace of God beaming upon their faces.

How are you, my friends? said he.

Then they recognized the stranger and for some time they could not speak.

Thanks, thanks, dear Sir...we have found the treasure which you spoke of! 

Now the blessing of God dwells in our house and His peace in our hearts!

So they said and their entire condition, and the happy faces of their children, declared the same more plainly!

~Author Unknown~