We Pray That The Seeds Of Truth Contained In This Blog Will Penetrate The Good Soil Of Your Heart And Bear Much Fruit.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Our Father's Provision
In my lifetime I have never talked to as many frightened people as I have in the past three months. America is downright scared!
Builders, Wall Street professionals, retailers, executives, lawyers, small business owners are all saying the same thing: It's worse than most people know. And it's going to ge worse! We are racing toward very hard times.
No one likes to hear these kinds of reports; in fact, they can be very depressing. But the Puritans had a saying: "Our affections bribe our discernments." We all love America and our way of life, but unless we face the truth that hard times in this nation are upon us, we will never have the trust and confidence we are going to need.
Rest assured, none of this is taking Jesus by surprise. He saw it all coming. He who has numbered every hair on a person’s head and counted every fallen sparrow knew beforehand what His followers would face in the last days.
He knew where every dollar in the federal budget would go—and that your rent and taxes would escalate. He knew about every job layoff His children would face, about all your bills, even the number of children you have.
There is not one thing our blessed Savior did not know when He told us very specifically in Matthew 6:25-33: "Don't give these things a second thought. Your heavenly Father knows all about your personal needs and He will take care of you!"
You wonder how a Christian in need can give no thought to his physical condition and I say that we cannot shrink from Jesus' promise to us. His very words are eternal: "I say unto you. . . ." In fact, you can take those very words to the throne room of God and say to Jesus, “These are the red letter words: ‘I say unto you, give no thought to your needs!’”
No matter how many banks close or how long the unemployment lines grow, our Lord will be feeding the fowl of the air, dressing the lilies of the fields, and supplying the daily needs of an ocean full of fish! “Your heavenly Father feedeth them” (Matthew 6:26). Not one creature will suffer without our Lord knowing it.
Hard times will never stop our Father’s provision: “Are ye not much better than they? . . . Shall He not much more clothe you?” (Matthew 6:26, 30).
~David Wilkerson~
Thursday, January 24, 2013
YOU ARE BEING TESTED
The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits~Now when they shall fall, they shall be [helped] with a little help. And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed
(Daniel 11:32-35).
A great time of testing is coming upon "those of understanding." Just who are these who will be tested? They are the righteous, those who do exploits for the Lord, who walk with God and have the wisdom of Christ.
Right now, you may be asking, "Why am I being tested? Why is this happening to me?"
Remember your school days? When a test in school was given, it revealed how much you had actually learned of what you had been taught. Yet Paul spoke of a different school, one where we are "learning Christ" and are "being taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus" (see Ephesians 4:20-21).
If you belong to Jesus, you are in His school.
You may have thought you had graduated, but that will not happen until you are in glory.
When I was in school, I hated "pop quizzes," unannounced tests. Yet the Lord has told us to be ready to be tested at any time, and these tests will continue until Jesus returns.
All who love the Lord are going to go through fiery trials and be purged of all that is not like Christ, in preparation for the wedding of the Lamb.
David often spoke of being tested and tried: "I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness" (1 Chronicles 29:17). "Thou has proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me,
and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress" (Psalm 17:3).
~David Wilkersoon~
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
It Rains On The Just And The Unjust
I would be lying if I told you that Christians will observe sorrow, trouble, unemployment and depression on all sides while they themselves remain safe within a cozy cocoon of health and wealth. The Bible says God causes the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45). Job was holy—yet he suffered! But just as God brought Job out of his affliction, so He will bring us out even though we, too, will go through the fire.
Hundreds of ministers are meeting to pray in different cities, and the same confession is heard: "Never have so many been so deeply tested. Satan has come like a flood, with trouble, hardship, deep sorrow and pain befalling the godly."
Satan was Job's troubler and he is your troubler. Could it be that he has stood again before God and issued a great accusation against the last-days church? He might have challenged God, "It is the last hour, but You have no true church. You have no spotless bride. There are no wise virgins; in fact, most of them are asleep. Look at them—materialistic, self-centered, grasping for riches and the good life. Listen to their teachers telling them they need not suffer, that all things are theirs for the asking.
Take down Your wall of protection, God! Let me put them to the test. You won't even have a holy remnant left. I'll take away their employment. I'll smite them with sorrows. I'll pour out a spirit of fear and despondency, and flood them with temptations. You will see this last, pampered generation fold. There are no Jobs in this church. They are spiritual wimps!"
Beloved, this is why the Scripture says, "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time" (Revelation 12:12).
In the midst of your trial, some of you already have adopted the despairing language of Job. Your heart cries out, "God, what did I do wrong? I don't understand why this calamity has fallen on me when I loved You most, my walk was holy, my heart pure, and my spirit was longing after You. It seems like the closer I draw to You, the deeper I fall into trouble and the more sorrows come.”
We do not realize how important it is to God that we trust Him through all the floods of trouble that come upon us from hell. You see, the devil cannot touch you or test you unless God first lets down the wall and allows it.
~David Wilkerson~
Friday, January 18, 2013
A Heart's Cry
Joh 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
I think it is quite clear that the Lord Jesus carried
in His heart a great longing and a prayer for the glory that He once
had. This is where I think John touches this matter very closely.
In the
seventeenth chapter of his gospel, he records that great prayer of the
Lord Jesus: "Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with
Thee before the world was" (vs. 5).
That opens a window and lets us see
that the Lord Jesus had a consciousness of His eternal glory past. He
carried it with Him; He knew about it – marvelous thought! – and that
the consciousness of that former glory was ever prompting Him to pray
toward, long toward, the day when He would return to it and it would
return to Him. "Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with
Thee before the world was."
The Mount of Transfiguration had become an answer to
His heart's prayer and cry and longing – at least a touch of it. A
fleeting touch, but for Him it was one of those things which perhaps you
know a little about in your Christian life.
The Lord just does
something – it passes, but you know by it that you have been heard; you
know that there is sympathy in the Father's heart for your need and
situation.
It may only last for a day, or a night, for an hour, or for a
little while, and then pass, because the end of the road is not yet;
the eternal glory has not yet come; but the touch by the way is
something that carries us on.
We know the Lord has heard; we know the
Lord has taken account of that inner cry and longing, and has given us a
token of His sympathy. It was like that with the Lord Jesus – the
answer to His own cry.
~T. Austin Sparks~
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Something That Cannot Be Rooted Up
Isa 37:31 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward:
The Lord must have something which cannot be carried away, which cannot be removed, cannot be shaken, and certainly something which cannot be rooted up.
That is His remnant. That, He must have for
His own glory, and, that being so, He will take every measure with His
remnant to have them after that kind, with roots downward. Of course,
unto fruit upward.
We speak much about the upward side of things, life
in the heavenlies, sitting in the heavenlies, and our warfare and work –
the fruitfulness of our life in union with the Lord.
That is only
possible as our roots are downward. In order that that might be so, we
have to get into a place of unshakeableness where the roots have got
such a grip that nothing can overthrow.
And I believe that explains a
very great deal of what the Lord is doing with His own spiritual people
in these days.
It is true that the true children of God are going
through a time of intense trial and testing spiritually in these days;
everywhere it is so.
Why? Because the Lord must have something against
which hell is impotent and by which He demonstrates to the universe that
strength of His might which causes to stand and withstand, and having
done all to stand.
If one were asked what the last issue for the Church
in this age is, I would say that it stands, and that is saying a
tremendous thing.
Oh, you say, that is surely limiting things, are you
not expecting much more than that? Progress, advance, sweeping
movements? The Church will have all its work cut out in the end to
stand, but its standing will be its victory.
Just to be able, through
testing, trial, when everything is blowing round you like a blizzard;
when everything is dark, mysterious, and even God seems far away and
unreal, and faith is tested and you are being assailed on the right hand
and on the left, and there is every reason outwardly for your moving,
giving up, falling down, surrendering, lowering your standard, just to
stand and not be moved in your faith is the greatest possible
victory....
We are passing through deep experiences, the enemy is doing
it and the Lord is not preventing him, but we are coming to a fuller
knowledge of the power of our God and a deeper rooting beyond all
previous shakeableness.
And the Lord is seeking to have a people who
cannot be shaken, against whom hell with all its demonstration of
arrogance and pride, is impotent.
And the remnant... shall again take root downward.” That is what the Lord needs.
~T. Austin Sparks~
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Is Jesus Your All?
Col 3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
I wonder, dear friends, what you covet and pray for
more than anything else.
For my own part, my coveting, my praying is
more than for anything else, a fresh and mighty captivation of the Lord
Jesus, a captivation of Christ. Oh, it is quite true, and we know it, that He is our Life, He is our
Savior, He is so much to us and we are right when we say that we could
not live without Him.
And yet, is there not some margin between that and
what I am calling an absolute captivation with Christ? That He is a Passion in our lives, that He is a Dominating Power
in our lives.
Language fails... that He has just so captured us, so
utterly captured us, that not only is He our Life in the sense that we
couldn't get on without Him, but that He is a passion for living.
This man who wrote these words, just look at him in this way: somehow he had seen Christ at
the beginning and through his long years he had seen more and more of
Christ, until in prison – with all those terrible sufferings and
afflictions and adversities and sorrows and disappointments that had
come upon him through those years, his catalog of adversities right at
the end; Christ is more than everything.
Christ is in the ascendant, it
is “Christ will be All, and in all.” Now I say, language fails, I cannot
put into words what I mean, but oh, for the positiveness of this
passion of Christ....
Such a seeing, a grasping, an apprehending and being
mastered by the Greatness of the One to Whom, by the grace of God, we
have been united, called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ.
May it
be more than a mental grasping of Christ; that we know He is Great, we
believe He is great, we have experienced something of His Greatness. May our hearts, more than even our minds, be mastered by this Man Jesus Christ and we be His abject slaves in worship and adoration.
He is so great!
~T. Austin Sparks~
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Spiritual Blessings
Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
The
object of our meditation is: Jesus Christ in heaven as our
Sufficiency.... Our Lord Jesus’ resources came from His Father when He
was here on this earth.
He voluntarily lived in a state of absolute
dependence on Him.
He willed it to be so.
He refused to have anything in Himself.
Everything He needed He drew from heaven; He received it from
above.
When we are in resurrection-union with Christ, the Holy Spirit
brings us into oneness with Him who is in heaven for us.
That means: all
the resources upon which the Lord Jesus lived are at our disposal.
These resources were secret resources, that is, they were unknown to the
world.
The people around Him were absolutely in the dark as to the
source of His power. There was a secret relationship between Him and His
Father which impressed them. They saw that there was something in the
background of His life, a mysterious power and knowledge, which was not
ordinary to man.
He had a whole set of resources at His command which no
one possessed. He had a knowledge which was far beyond man’s
understanding. And because He lived a secret life, a life in His Father,
His resources were mysterious and wonderful to men.
If we live in heavenly union with Jesus Christ by the
Holy Spirit, the same resources are at our disposal.
Let us remind
ourselves of the Word which is at the basis of our meditation: “The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.”
That means that all the resources which are in Christ are available for
us. But we have to learn to live in such close fellowship with Him as
He lived with His Father in the days of His flesh.
~T. Austin Sparks~
Saturday, December 22, 2012
How Can We Know We Are Truly "In Christ"?
(Please note: These evidences are contingent upon your first repenting of sin, forsaking all wickedness, trusting in Christ for eternal salvation, and allowing Him to translate you out of darkness and into His kingdom of light.)
1. You are in Christ if you are continually being renewed. Those who are "in Christ" do not rest on a one-time conversion experience. Rather, they constantly cry out to be changed and renewed by the Holy Spirit. Their daily prayer is, "Lord, take out of me everything that is unlike You.”
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new
(2 Corinthians 5:17). Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour"
(Titus 3:5-6).
2. You are in Christ if you govern your life by the Scriptures. Do you revere and fear God's Word?
Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him (1 John 2:5). The Bible makes it clear: We know we are in Christ if we love and obey His Word.
3. You are in Christ if your faith is mixed with charity. Scripture says if you do not have charity, or unconditional love, you cannot be in Christ.
Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing"
(1 Corinthians 13:2). Nothing in Greek here means, "I am nothing now nor will I ever be anything. In other words, Without unconditional love for all, I am a nobody and I will always be a nobody."
You can be a gifted preacher, a powerful evangelist, or an anointed teacher of God’s Word who walks in great faith, but if you do not have love for others, you are nothing.
~David Wilkerson~
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Taking Sin Lightly
The prophet Ezekiel gives us a vivid illustration of what happens to a people who take their sin lightly. In this account, the seventy elders of Judah came to Ezekiel to receive a word from the Lord. These men were all in the service of the temple, and as they gathered with the prophet to worship, Ezekiel was given an amazing vision:
As I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me. Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem (Ezekiel 8:1-3).
The Holy Spirit fell on this gathering, and God's holy fire filled the place with light: "And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there" (verse 4).
Whenever God's fiery presence appears in a meeting, sin is always exposed.
Suddenly, the prophet saw that these men's minds were filled with every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts (verse 10). He is describing demonic strongholds, evil beings. And they had infiltrated God's house through the ministry!
There sat the seventy elders, calm and placid, appearing as worshipers seeking guidance from the Lord. In truth, however, they were covering hidden sin. They had been going through the outward worship procedures of the temple ministry, when in reality they all belonged to a secret society of sun worshipers. They employed prostitutes in the temple and as part of the worship ritual, these supposedly godly elders took part in fornication.
Worst of all, these men were not convicted of their horrible idolatry. They had convinced themselves that God winked at their idolatry. David was heavily burdened by his sin but these seventy elders felt no arrows of conviction, no loss of physical strength, no emotional pain. Instead, they were deceived by what Moses called a "false peace."
And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst (Deuteronomy 29:19).
In other words: A deceived person is like a drunkard; he has lost all ability to discern. He can't even distinguish between thirst and drunkenness.
~David Wilkerson~
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
I Have Something Against You
The Christians at Ephesus walked closely with the Lord. As I read through Paul's letter to the Ephesians, I am amazed at the gospel these people heard and lived. In fact, Paul compliments them at length. He addresses them as, "The faithful in Christ Jesus blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ chosen before the foundation of the world predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will" (Ephesians 1:1-5).
What a description of a blessed, holy people! Jesus also compliments the Ephesian Christians in the book of Revelation: I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience (Revelation 2:2). In other words: I know all the good things going on in your lives. You patiently labor for Me without complaining and you will do anything for others. You're diligent in your good works and that is very commendable.
Jesus points out something else in the hearts of these Ephesians, something He notes is deeply wrong. He says, I see all your works your hatred for sin, your love for truth, your righteous courage. And yet somehow in all your labors, you've allowed your first love to wither. Your affection for Me is dying.
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love (verse 4). Beloved, I have read and reread this verse and have concluded that its seriousness cannot be overlooked. The word somewhat here indicating something that might be taken lightly does not appear in the original Greek text. Instead, the original phrase is translated, literally, I have something against you!
I would like to think I am an Ephesian-type Christian, a faithful laborer. I want to believe that my suffering is for Jesus' sake, that my good works glorify Him, that I practice righteous living, that I am seated with Him in heavenly places. But when I read of Jesus walking among such well-taught believers as the Ephesians and telling them, "I have something against you,”
it grips my soul.
I have to ask my Lord, "Jesus, do You have something against me? Have I also lost my affection for You?"
~T. Austin Sparks~
Thursday, December 6, 2012
What Holds Your Heart?
A woman on our mailing list wrote this distressing note: "My
husband was once on fire for God. For years he gave himself
faithfully to the Lord's work but today he's all wrapped up in a
new pursuit. He no longer has any time for the Lord. I worry for him, because he's grown so cold."
Jesus told a parable about this very kind of legitimate pursuit. A wealthy man sent his servant to invite all his friends to a great feast he was holding. But, Scripture says, the man's friends "all with one consent began to make excuse" (Luke 14:18).
One friend told the servant, "I just bought a piece of land, sight
unseen, and I have to inspect it. Please tell your master I won't
be able to come." The next friend told the servant, "I just bought a yoke of oxen and I haven't had time to test them. Tell your master I can't come, because I have to go into the field to plow with them." Yet another friend told the servant, "I just got married and I'm about to take my honeymoon. I don't have time to come to the feast."
This man had invited all his friends to enjoy an intimate time of
fellowship with him. He had made all the arrangements for their comfort and convenience. The table had been set and everything had been prepared, but no one came. Everyone was simply too busy or preoccupied.
Each person had a good, legitimate reason for not coming. After
all, they were not avoiding their friend so that they could go partying or bar-hopping. On the contrary, the Bible commends everything these people were doing: Buying and selling can provide security for one's family, and testing a major purchase is a sound business practice. Finally, marriage is a blessing that the Scriptures encourage.
Yet, how did this wealthy man react? Scripture says, "The lord
said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and
compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say
unto you, that none of those men which were bidden shall taste
of my supper" (verses 23-24).
Jesus makes a very clear point in this parable: Each of these
good, legitimate things becomes sinful when it takes priority over the Lord.
~David Wilkerson~
Sunday, December 2, 2012
We Are The Temple Today
Wherever two or three are gathered (drawn together
as My followers) into My name, there I AM in the midst of them.
(Matthew 18:20 AMP)
Jesus, As THE TRUTH, is CONTRASTED with Satan, the LIAR. But HE is also Contrasted with All representations, types,
symbols, outward forms, etc., which were – and are – not the true, the
real.
When our LORD spoke of His body as the Temple, deliberately
refraining from the fuller explanation because of the fixed prejudice of
His hearers, He introduced the Great Truth of the transition from one
dispensation to another, and the complete change in the nature of temple
and worship.
It was because Stephen saw this and declared it that he
was murdered by these very people.
Said he: "The Most High dwelleth not
in houses made with hands" (Acts 7:48). Paul said the same to the
Athenians (Acts 17:24). This does not mean that God never came into
representations When They Wholly Corresponded With His Thought.
Both the
Tabernacle and the Temple were made with hands and GOD came into them
in Power and Glory, but Not To Commit Himself To The Thing.
The
time came when He FORSOOK BOTH and He was no longer found there. They
were only temporary representations and His presence was conditional.
The "True Tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not
man" (Hebrews 8:2) is "Not Of This Creation."
The whole Letter to the
Hebrews has to do with this change from the earthly and temporal to the
heavenly and spiritual. Hence, He is no longer in "temples made with
hands."
To come right to the point: the New Testament teaches that the
Temple in this dispensation is a Person, and persons incorporated into
Him through death, burial and resurrection, and "baptized into one body
by one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13).
We must also remember that Jesus
foretold the passing away of that entire temporal system, with Jerusalem
as its center and representation.
With His foreknowledge of the passing
of the earthly, temporal and material things; places, systems, fixed
locations, and outward forms, the Lord Jesus put the whole matter of
survival upon Himself as the constituent of a spiritual structure
against which the very powers of hell would not prevail.
Against fixed
localizing and systematizing of Himself and His presence He was
emphatic, and history is evidence of how right He was. If, according to
John 3:16, salvation is a matter of "whosoever," the Lord's presence and
true worship, according to Matthew 18:20, is "wheresoever."
~T. Austin Sparks~
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Devil Proof!
God allows your trial because He wants to make you “devil-proof”! That does not mean you will not be attacked again but you will be trained to stand! It is all part of His preparing you for greater service, greater anointing and expanded usefulness in His kingdom.
Furthermore, the Lord is trying to strengthen you against the devil’s wiles. He is raising up a body of believers who have faced the devil, who have been strengthened against him, and who know his devices and are not afraid of him!
God is saying, “Once you understand why you are going through this, you will have taken back all the ground you lost. You will be in control again—by the power of the Holy Spirit!”
Once Elijah’s trial was over (see 1 Kings 19) he would never run again. He now had a sense of direction and he was reassured in his spirit. You see, God was about to send him to nations to raise up kings, leaders and prophets!
God told Elijah: “Go, return on your way...anoint Hazael as king over Syria...anoint Jehu...as king over Israel. And Elisha...you shall anoint as prophet in your place” (1 Kings 19:15-16). Elijah had been given fresh anointing power. He was in control again!
“So he departed from there” (verse 19). Elijah came out of the cave to do God’s will! He did not have to shed a river of tears. No, he simply had heard the Word of the Lord!
Beloved, the only hold the devil can have on you is fear. And you must shake it off in faith!
You have to say, “I am Not going down. God is going to give me a fresh anointing from heaven—He is going to use me!”
Do you believe that God is not finished with you—that He is teaching and training you for better things? He wants to speak to you in your cave of despondency. He wants to tell you what to do and where to go—and He wants to bring you out!
So get up out of your despair and shake off the bondage of fear and depression! Depart from your cave.
You will discover that the moment you get up and walk out, the anointing will flow!
~David Wilkerson~
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