Immortal Till Work Done

                                                      
A fair assurance this! 

It was no doubt based upon a promise, inwardly whispered in the psalmist's heart, which he seized upon and enjoyed. 

Is my case like that of David? 

Am I depressed because the enemy affronts me?

Are there multitudes against me and few on my side?

Does unbelief bid me lie down and die in despair-a defeated, dishonored man?

Do my enemies begin to dig my grave?

What then?

Shall I yield to the whisper of fear, and give up the battle, and with it give up all hope?

Far from it. 

There is life in me yet: "I shall not die." 

Vigor will return and remove my weakness: "I shall live."

The LORD lives, and I shall live also. 

My mouth shall again be opened: "I shall declare the works of Jehovah." 

Yes, and I shall speak of the present trouble as another instance of the wonder-working faithfulness and love of the LORD my God. 

Those who would gladly measure me for my coffin had better wait a bit, for "the LORD hath chastened me sore, but he hath not given me over unto death."

Glory be to His name forever! 

I am immortal till my work is done. 

Till the LORD wills it, no vault can close upon me. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

Maintain The Difference

Exodus 8:23  And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.

Pharaoh has a people, and the LORD has a people. 

These may dwell together and seem to fare alike, but there is a division between them, and the LORD will make it apparent. 

Not forever shall one event happen alike to all, but there shall be great difference between the men of the world and the people of Jehovah's choice. 

This may happen in the time of judgments, when the LORD becomes the sanctuary of His saints. 

It is very conspicuous in the conversion of believers when their sin is put away, while unbelievers remain under condemnation. 

From that moment they become a distinct race, come under a new discipline, and enjoy new blessings. 

Their homes, henceforth, are free from the grievous swarms of evils which defile and torment the Egyptians. 

They are kept from the pollution of lust, the bite of care, the corruption of falsehood, and the cruel torment of hatred, which devour many families. 

Rest assured, tried believer, that though you have your troubles you are saved from swarms of worse ones, which infest the homes and hearts of the servants of the world's prince. 

The LORD has put a division; see to it that you keep up the division in Spirit, aim, character, and company.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Need Of Solitude With GOD

Mat 14:23  And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
 
Christ Jesus, in His humanity, felt the need of complete solitude...to be entirely by Himself, alone with Himself. 

Each of us knows how draining constant interchange with others can be and how it exhausts our energy. 

As part of humankind, Jesus knew this and felt the need to be by Himself in order to regain His strength. 

Solitude was also important to Him in order to fully realize His high calling, His human weakness, and His total dependence on His Father.
 
As a child of God, how much more do we need times of complete solitude...

Times to deal with the spiritual realities of life and to be alone with God the Father. 

If there was ever anyone who could dispense with special times of solitude and fellowship, it was
our Lord. 

Yet even He could not maintain His full strength and power for His work and His fellowship with the Father without His quiet time. 

God desires that every servant of His would understand and perform this blessed practice...

That His church would know how to train its children to recognize this high and holy privilege...

And that every believer would realize the importance of making time for God alone.
 
Oh, the thought of having God all alone to myself and knowing that God has me all alone to Himself! 

~Andrew Murray~

Lamartine, the first of the French Romantic poets and a writer of the nineteenth century, in one of his books wrote of how his mother had a secluded spot in the garden where she spent the same hour of each day. 

He related that nobody ever dreamed of intruding upon her for even a moment of that hour.
 
It was the holy garden of the Lord to her.
 
Pity those people who have no such Beulah land! (See Isa. 62:4.) 

Jesus said,“Go into your room, close the door and pray” (Matt. 6:6), 

For it is in quiet solitude that we catch the deep and mysterious truths that flow from the soul of the things God allows to enter our lives.
 
A Meditation...

My soul, practice being alone with Christ! 

The Scripture says, “When he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything” (Mark 4:34).

Do not wonder about the truth of this verse, for it can be true of your life as well. 

If you desire to have understanding, then dismiss the crowd, just as Jesus did. (See Matt. 14:22.) 

Let them “go away one at a time until only Jesus [is] left” (John 8:9) with you. 

Have you ever pictured yourself s the last remaining person on earth, or the only person left in the entire universe?
 
If you were the only person remaining in the universe, your every thought would be,“God and I...! God and I...!”

And yet He is already as close to you as that. 

He is as near as if no heart but His and yours ever beat throughout the boundlessness of space.
 
O my soul, practice that solitude! 

Practice dismissing the crowd! 

Practice the stillness of your heart! 

Practice the majestic song “God and I! God and I!”

Let no one come between you and your wrestling angel! 

You will receive conviction yet pardon, when you meet Jesus alone! 

~George Matheson~

All Comes From The Hand Of Him Who Is Too Wise To Err And Too Loving To Be Unkind!

Faith endures as seeing Him who is invisible. 

Faith endures the disappointments, the hardships and the heartaches of life-by recognizing that all comes from the hand of Him who is too wise to err and too loving to be unkind.

So long as we are occupied with any other object than God Himself, there will be neither rest for the heart nor peace for the mind. 

But when we receive all that enters our lives as from His hand-then, no matter what may be our circumstances or surroundings; whether in a hovel, or prison-dungeon, or at a martyr's stake-we shall be enabled to say, "The lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places" (Psalm 16:6). 

But that is the language of faith, not of sight nor of sense.

Faith may swim-where reason cannot wade! Thomas Watson

Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 

~Arthur Pink~

A SATANIC MASTER-STROKE

 

Perhaps one of the most SIGNIFICANT things to any who are “not ignorant of his (Satan’s) devices” is that there never has been a specially spiritual movement of God in the earth, calculated to serve Him in a particularly useful way, but what Satan’s animosity thereto has been manifested along the line of division, schism, discord, separation, and a breaking down of fellowship. 

And how often has the real sting and stigma been modified by a feigning love unbroken and preserved, when the divided parties should have no association with each other in the things of God. 

Love, let us again say emphatically, is incumbent upon the Lord’s people toward “all men”, whether of the “household” or otherwise (Gal. 6:10), but fellowship is something more. 

It is the most spiritual things which suffer the greatest shocks in this matter, and again we say this carries its own Satanic significance.

The methods of the enemy are numberless, the “wiles” unfathomable by human wit.

A suggestion of suspicion, if it finds lodgment, is enough to completely paralyze the work of God and spiritual progress. 

Have a doubt and you are done. 

There never was a time when positive spiritual work was more jeopardized by suspicion than now.

It would seem that hell is largely employed in issuing forth smoke, clouds, vapours, mists of suspicion, question, reservation, in order to infect with uncertainty, mystification, prejudice, fear, discrediting, distrust, aloofness.

It is in the “heavenlies” that this is most registered; that is, the higher ranges of spiritual things.

It is an ATMOSPHERE, and it is everywhere. 

You sense it wherever you go.

In some places it is stifling - there is no clear breath of the Spirit, and a word of life is almost choked back.

Of course, this is no new thing, although now so intensified.

The New Testament is full of it.

The Lord Jesus met it - not in spiritual people, only in religious people. 

John met it.

Paul met it in every direction.

It was made to circle round his person, his methods, his character, and his message.

Even some members of the mother assembly at Jerusalem showed suspicion and lack of cordiality toward him.

Paul’s setting aside of the Law, for instance, seemed to them to go beyond even the Lord Himself, who had not openly abrogated it.

Then Paul appealed to “visions and revelations” (2 Cor. 12:1), but they asserted that these were dubious, or at best they could only serve to ratify his own personal convictions. 

Again, both Paul and his opponents appealed to the Old Testament, but the letter of the Old Testament seemed undoubtedly to favor the literalists, and his ‘attempt to read new meanings’ into the old revelation seemed to them mere cleverness.

They looked on it as barefaced denial of the Divine Word.

To them it looked as though he did not believe the Bible.

They regarded his innovations as morally dangerous.

Of course, this in SUBSTANCE ought to have no parallel today, but it has in spirit. 

There is nothing added by revelation to the Scriptures since the New Testament was closed, but there is much to be RECOGNIZED in them by the enlightenment of the Spirit. 

There is no new meaning, but there is much new RECOGNITION of the meaning.

~T. Austin Sparks~