Travail Implies Something Costly

Now note the implication of this principle of travail...and there are many connections in which the law of travail operates:

Just go through the Bible and see the great number of connections where struggle and conflict and pain and anguish presages the emergence of some tremendous new thing of GOD.

But note the implication of such a law. What did God mean by it?

I think simply this - and perhaps much more, but certainly this...that nothing was going to be easy and cheap.

To put it another way: that GOD was really establishing the tremendous value of everything.

He was saving man from regarding things as being of little concern or value, forcing him to recognize that this thing is costly because it is valuable.

Surely this is the offset to the whole tendency of man’s nature to get things easily and cheaply, not to pay a price for them, to escape suffering, to escape labour, to get it all without any cost.

And GOD has written in the universe this law that anything that is of Him, whether in creation or in grace, has a price attached to it, is a costly thing; it is infinitely precious and valuable, and worth suffering for!

Note, it is intended to bring the soul in...“the travail of his SOUL”; “My SOUL is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” - to bring the soul into relation with things; and when we say that we mean love.

What we get cheaply and easily we do not really love.

But that which costs binds our hearts to it...it becomes a matter of the heart, of love.

And so by travail the soul is saved from lightness, carelessness, frivolity, cheapness, and brought to recognize that there is something here that is infinitely precious.

How far-reaching is that truth and that law! 

What a lot of ground it covers! GOD is not going to let the creation off in this matter.

This is the explanation of so much. And nations and peoples that just give themselves up to frivolity, to cheapness, to escapism and all that sort of thing, are on the high road to a bad time in their history.

It will not be too long before they pass through some fiery ordeal, in order to bring back the preciousness and the seriousness of things.

And if this is true in the realm of nature and the world, how much it explains in the realm of GOD's spiritual things!

Oh, the infinite tragedy of trying to make the things of GOD cheap and easy...even salvation, and the Christian life!

Appealing always to the pleasure side of men, trying to eliminate the cost.

The LORD Jesus never did that. Salvation is something of infinite cost: everything to do with salvation is infinitely precious, and there is not one fragment of all that is of GOD which is not of surpassing and transcendent value.

It is not just going to be had willy-nilly. 

Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

Yes, suffering is attached to anything of value, and that is particularly true of spiritual things.

At that very point, you and I need to have our minds “converted” - we need a tremendous change of mind.

Unless you recognize that, unless that has become true for you, there are some things in the Bible you cannot understand.

They sound flippant, garrulous; they sound as though they are just words, words, words… 

Listen: “Our light affliction, which is for the moment…” (2 Cor. 4:17).

What are you talking about, Paul - “our light affliction”? 

Well, listen to his catalog of sufferings! Listen to him as he tells us of all that he had to go through for the Gospel’s sake, and read the much more that Luke tells us, that Paul never mentions personally.

What that beloved servant of GOD went through for the Gospel’s sake!

And yet he talks like this: “Our light affliction which is but for a passing moment”.

You cannot talk like that in the presence of suffering unless you have seen the infinite preciousness of that toward which GOD is working and bringing you.

Though now for a little while…ye have been put to grief in manifold trials, yet…ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory…” (1 Pet. 1:6,8).

Now look at the context of that: fiery trials.

You cannot get through, understand, endure the travail, unless you have some sense of the value of things.

~T. Austin Sparks~

VISION NEEDED BY EVERY CHILD OF GOD

You and I individually must be in the place where we can say, 'I have seen, I know what God is after!'

If we were asked why the Church is as it is today, in so large a measure of impotence and disintegration, and what is needed to bring about an impact from heaven by means of the Church, could we say? Is it presumption to claim to be able to do that?

The prophets knew; and remember that the prophets, whether they were of the Old Testament or of the New Testament, were not an isolated class of people, they were not some body apart, holding this in themselves officially. 

They were the very eyes of the body. They were, in the thought of God, the people of God. 

You know that principle; it is seen, for instance, in the matter of the High Priest.

God looks upon the one High Priest as Israel, and deals with all Israel on the ground of the condition of the High Priest, whether it be good or bad.

If the High Priest is bad - "And he showed me Joshua the high priest... clothed with filthy garments" (Zechariah 3:1-5) - that is Israel. 

God deals with Israel as one man.

The prophet is the same; and that is why the prophet was so interwoven with the very condition and life of the people.

Listen to the prophet Daniel praying. Personally he was not guilty; personally he had not sinned as the nation had sinned; but he took it all on himself and spoke as though it were his responsibility, as if he were the chief of sinners. 

These men were brought right into it. There is such a oneness between the prophets and the people in condition, in experience, in suffering, that they can never view themselves as officials apart from all that, as it were talking to it from the outside; they are in it, they are it.

My meaning is this, that we are not to have vision brought to us by a class called ministers, prophets and apostles.

They are here only to keep us alive to what we ought to be before God, how we ought to be; constantly stirring us up and saying, 'Look here, this is what you ought to be.'

It ought therefore to be, with every one of us personally, that we are in the meaning of this prophetic ministry.

The Church is called to be a prophet to the nations.

May I repeat my enquiry - it is a permissible question without admitting of any   presumption...could you say what is needed by the Church today?

Could you interpret the state of things, and explain truly by what the LORD has shown you in your own heart?

I know the peril and dangers that may surround such an idea, but that is the very meaning of our existence.

It will be in greater or lesser degree in every one of us, but, either more or less we have the key to the situation.

God needs people of that sort. It must be individual.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Spiritual Vs. The Natural

John 16:33  These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

When the spiritual stands to confront the merely formal, traditional, nominal and "natural," then there is going to be trouble.

This is not now merely the reaction from the world: it is the reaction from religion.

I would go further, and say it may be the reaction from Christianity.

There is a very great difference between formal, traditional, nominal, "natural" Christianity, on the one side, and spiritual Christianity, on the other; a great deal of difference.

So much so, that this also becomes a battlefield...the battlefield of a lot of trouble.

Leave formalism alone, and everything will go on quite quietly.

Leave traditionalism alone-that is, the set order of things as it has always been; that framework of things as it has been constituted and set up and established by man; that Christianity which is the fixed, accepted system of things...and you will escape a great deal of trouble.

But seek to bring in a truly spiritual order of things, and trouble arises at once.

And YOU are the trouble maker!

The truth is that the trouble lies in the existing condition, the situation, the state; but it is only brought out by your action.

And so spiritual men and women, and spiritual ministry, are called "trouble makers," because the two things cannot go on together.

That is where Israel was. They had the traditions, they had the oracles, they had the ordinances, they had the testimonies; they had the forms, they had the system - they had it all; but, in the days of the prophets, there was ever this vast gap between the "externals" and "internals" of life in relation with GOD.

The heart is far removed from the lips.

The spiritual reality is not found in the formal. 

You may have it all – but then bring in the truly spiritual meaning of things, and trouble begins in that very realm.

It is the trouble which arises when what is external and traditional comes into conflict with something which is truly spiritual.

 
~T. Austin-Sparks~

Believe And Trust GOD!

Romans 4:3  For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

Abraham's faith reposed on GOD Himself. He knew the GOD he was dealing with. It was a personal confidence in one whom he could utterly trust.

The real secret of Abraham's whole life was that he was the friend of GOD, and knew GOD to be his great, good and faithful Friend, and, taking Him at His word, he had stepped out from all that he knew and loved, and gone forth upon an unknown pathway with none but GOD.

Beloved, are we trusting not only in the word of GOD, but have we learned to lean our whole weight upon Himself, the GOD of infinite love and power, our covenant GOD and everlasting Friend?

We are told that Abraham glorified GOD by this life of faith.

The true way to glorify GOD is to let the world see what He is, and what He can do.

GOD does not want us so much to do things, as to let people see what He can do. 

God is not looking for extraordinary characters as His instruments, but He is looking for humble instruments through whom He can be honored throughout the ages.

~A. B. Simpson~

Never Ashamed

Mat 10:32  Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

Gracious promise! It is a great joy to me to confess my LORD. Whatever my faults may be, I am not ashamed of Jesus, nor do I fear to declare the doctrines of His cross.

O LORD, I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart. Sweet is the prospect which the text sets before me!

Friends forsake and enemies exult, but the LORD does not disown His servant.

Doubtless my LORD will own me even here and give me new tokens of His favorable regard.

But there comes a day when I must stand before the great Father. What bliss to think that Jesus will confess me then! 

He will say, "This man truly trusted Me and was willing to be reproached for My name's sake; and therefore I acknowledge him as Mine."

The other day a great man was made a knight, and the Queen handed him a jeweled garter; but what of that?

It will be an honor beyond all honors for the LORD Jesus to confess us in the presence of the divine Majesty in the heavens.

Never let me be ashamed to own my LORD.

Never let me indulge a cowardly silence or allow a fainthearted compromise.

Shall I blush to own Him who promises to own me?

~Charles Spurgeon~

Sin of Worry

            

Psa 37:1  Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

This to me is a Divine command; the same as "Thou shalt not steal."                    

Now let us get to the definition of fretting.

One good definition is, "Made rough on the surface." "Rubbed, or worn away"; and a peevish, irrational, fault-finding person not only wears himself out, but is very wearing to others.

To fret is to be in a state of vexation, and in this Psalm we are not only told not to fret because of evildoers, but to fret not "in anywise."

It is injurious, and GOD does not want us to hurt ourselves.
 
A physician will tell you that a fit of anger is more injurious to the system than a fever, and a fretful disposition is not conducive to a healthy body;

And you know rules are apt to work both ways, and the next step down from fretting is crossness, and that amounts to anger.

Let us settle this matter, and be obedient to the command, "Fret not."

~Margaret Bottome~

OVERHEARD IN AN ORCHARD

Said the Robin to the Sparrow: "I should really like to know Why these anxious human beings Rush about and worry so?"

Said the Sparrow to the Robin:  "Friend, I think that it must be That they have no Heavenly Father Such as cares for you and me."

~Elizabeth Cheney~

GOD Calls Us To Victory

Exo 15:1  Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
  
Beloved, GOD calls us to victory. Have any of you given up the conflict, have you surrendered? 

Have you said, "This thing is too much"? Have you said, "I can give up anything else but this"?

If you have, you are not in the land of promise.
    
GOD means you should accept every difficult thing that comes in your life. 

He has started with you, knowing every difficulty. And if you dare to let Him, He will carry you through not only to be conquerors, but "more than conquerors." 

Are you looking for all the victory?
    
GOD gives His children strength for the battle and watches over them with a fond enthusiasm.
    
He longs to fold you to His arms and say to you, "I have seen thy conflict, I have watched thy trials, I have rejoiced in thy victory; thou hast honored Me."

You know He told Joshua at the beginning, "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life; as I was with Moses, so shall I be with thee:

I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." And again, He says to us, "Fear thou not, for I am with thee."

~A. B. Simpson~

The Service Of Passivity

The same unconscious ministry, again, is often a beautiful feature of the sickroom.

Patient suffering may be finest service.

It is told of Dr. Norman Macleod that on one occasion he went to pay a visit to a Sunday school scholar of his own.

He found him stretched upon a sorry bed, for the lad--an invalid--was dying amid scenes of crime and destitution. 

Norman Macleod was not a great preacher; Norman Macleod was a great human.

Stooping over the bed he said, "My poor lad, I'm afraid you're very weak." "Yes, sir," was the reply, "I'm very weak, but I'm strong in Him."

The following Sunday, Dr. Macleod told that story from the pulpit.

It was published in religious newspapers both in England and America.

And by and by, from Scotland, England, and from far-off villages of the United States, came testimonies that the story had been blessed.

Out in the High Street other lads were serving, Men and women were toiling for the Master.

Here in the garret, above the crowded street was a sufferer who would never serve again.

Yet, like Paul and Silas in the dungeon, he sang in his midnight because God was with him, and far away the other prisoners heard.

I have heard women lamenting they were useless because they could never leave their little room.

Others were out and active in the world; they were nothing but cumberers of the ground.

And yet that little chamber was a Bethel, and to enter it was to feel that GOD was there, and through the streets one walked a better man because of that patient beautiful endurance.

Never forget that among life's many ministries, the freest may be the unconscious ministry.

There is an exquisite service of passivity as surely as a service of activity.

When the lights are low, when the strong ones bow themselves, when the silver cord is at the point of breaking, you may be serving better than you know.

~George H. Morrison~


     

Among The Redeemed

Who would wish to dwell among the nations and to be numbered with them?

Why, even the professing church is such that to follow the LORD fully within its bounds is very difficult.

There is such a mingling and mixing that one often sighs for "a lodge in some vast wilderness."

Certain it is that the LORD would have His people follow a separated path as to the world and come out decidedly and distinctly from it.

We are set apart by the divine decree, purchase, and calling, and our inward experience has made us greatly to differ from men of the world;

And therefore our place is not in their Vanity Fair, nor in their City of Destruction, but in the narrow way where all true pilgrims must follow their LORD.

This may not only reconcile us to the world's cold shoulder and sneers but even cause us to accept them with pleasure as being a part of our covenant portion.

Our names are not in the same book, we are not of the same seed, we are not bound for the same place, neither are we trusting to the same guide;

Therefore it is well that we are not of their number.

Only let us be found in the number of the redeemed, and we are content to be off and solitary to the end of the chapter.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Relationship To The Altar

Why was it that Moses, when in touch with the people, was on the death side, the condemnation side, the judgment side, and everything was death?

On the other hand, why was it that he could turn and go into the Lord's presence, taking away the veil, and live in the very presence of that glory which to the people was death?

It is a very impressive thing. Here is the glory, this tremendous glory, and yet that glory on the one side ministered death.

But this man could just turn about, and without a veil go right into that glory and live.

The answer is found, of course, in an altar.

You will notice that, when Moses went up into the mount, the glory of the Lord was displayed, terrible glory, and he built an altar at the foot of the mount.

He went up by way of the altar, and there was always an altar between the gate of the court, where the people assembled, and the Most Holy Place, where the LORD was.

That altar made it possible for death to be changed to life.

The glory which had ministered judgment, and condemnation, had become the glory of a blessed communion.

So we ask, What does this altar mean?

We look at the sacrifice and we look at the blood: we find the offering and the blood perfect, without spot, without blemish, something that can pass the Divine scrutiny, can abide, can stand before the eye of GOD. 

When that is provided there is righteousness.

If you can turn and take that with you, that is, go before GOD in the value and the virtue of that, then you turn death into life, judgment into fellowship.

The Apostle, then, here speaks of "ministration of condemnation." There was a glory associated with it simply because it was the glory of GOD; it was GOD Who was in view.

Whatever the effect of GOD is, GOD is always glorious.

The effect depends upon where we are, upon which side of the altar we stand; whether we stand apart from the present values of that altar, or whether we stand right in the good of those values by faith.

It is clear that these people were in a state of unbelief, although called the LORD'S people.

At this time their whole history through the wilderness was one of unbelief.

They perished through unbelief, and the inference here is that even in the presence of all this provision, in type and symbol, their hearts were still unbelieving hearts...

Their hearts were hardened, so that they were not really in the good of all this by faith.

The effect for them was not what it might have been, namely, one of deliverance, of salvation; 

It was one of judgment, of condemnation.

They had the sacrifices, they had all the means of grace, but in heart were not really living in the good of those things.

That is why the thing was transcient. It had to go.

GOD never builds upon a foundation like that of mere external rites, performances; GOD builds upon an inner state. 

Read again from chapter 24: to chapter 34 of the book of Exodus, and mark the two movements there.

You will notice that in the beginning Moses went up into the mount and received the pattern of everything.

He was forty days in the mount. He received the law, the pattern of things complete, and then came down and found the people worshipping the golden calf, and there had to be this terrible judgment amongst them.

Then Moses went up a second time, and the LORD gave him the law again on fresh tables,  and he came down with the glory.

What we see is that, when Moses turned toward the people, there was a state there which was without faith, without heart relationship to the LORD, and the things which the LORD had provided.

The glory was therefore an occasion of judgment and death to them, but Moses himself was on other ground.

Moses was not on their ground; he was a mediator, he turned toward them; but he could also turn toward the LORD.

He was a mediator, and had other ground, the ground of a heart relationship with the LORD, and heart appreciation of the meaning of the altar and the blood; 

So that he needed no veil for himself. The veil was because of the people.

He himself could go in without a veil and live in the presence of the glory.

There are two sides, the "ministration of condemnation" and the "ministration of righteousness". 

The ministration of condemnation was because of the absence of faith in all that which GOD  had provided; the offering, the blood, the altar. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

Self The Stronghold Of Sin

Well, then, we must look at man, and what do we find?

What is the central thing in man?

It is this same thing - self, self, self, in some way. 

What is born in the blood will come out. 

Self-will, self-interest; the calculating upon a basis of how a given proposition or course will affect me, whether it will be to my advantage or disadvantage; and so on without end.

It is not seen only in grossly sensual forms, nor alone in the more common forms of ambition that might even be called worthy - the desire to climb the ladder of success, and so on.

But this thing can move right through into our spiritual life and become a secret hidden motive even in our quest for blessing, for power.

It can come out in a Peter who, when his Lord says to him "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me" (John 13:8) will respond, with eager desire to have as much for himself as possible, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head."

I do not want to get you analyzing and introspective, but I say we have to get down to this thing before we understand the Cross and before this spiritual personality which is Christ can be developed;

For it is only, as we have said, by way of the Cross that self-interest, self-sufficiency, self-realization, and a dozen other forms of self go out.

Not only the self which asserts itself, and is aggressive, imperious, seeking and loving the limelight, but also that which is pitying and drawing attention to itself because it is so poor and miserable and wretched a thing - it is all self.

Anything which has the effect of bringing us into view is self, and the Cross stands right in the way of that and says No to the whole thing that came from Satan, whatever form it takes - whether it is self-realization, asserting, forcing, driving, or self-pity with its negatives and its inferiority.

Satan is somewhere behind it all, and he will use it, and the effect is the hiding of Christ; and it has got to be dealt with somehow.

That is the school we are in.

It is this alliance of fallen man with Satan in the very nature of things which sums up the whole Bible from one standpoint...

And shows where GOD stands in relation to man when man is on his own ground and not on GOD'S ground.

~T. Austin Sparks~

A Man Of Rest...He Shall Build

THE men of rest are the builders of the most lasting structures. 

Solomon builds the Temple, not David. Mary's deed of anointing, learnt in much sitting at the Lord's feet, fills the world with its aroma.

What is needed to make us men and women of rest?

First, a profound conviction that God is working.

Never despair of the world, said the late Mrs. Beecher Stowe, when you remember what GOD did with slavery: the best possible must happen.

This serene faith, that all things are working out for the best the best to GOD, the best to man and that GOD is at the heart of all, will calm and still us in the most feverish days.

There is a strong and an experienced Hand on the helm.

Next, an entire surrender to his will.

GOD'S will is certain to mean the destruction of the flesh, in whatever form He finds it; but it is our part to yield to Him; to will his will even to the cross; to follow our leader Christ in this, that He yielded Himself without reserve to execute his Father's purpose.

Thirdly, a certain knowledge that He is working within to will and do of his good pIeasure.

What a blessed peace possesses us when once we realize that we are not called on to originate or initiate, nor to make great far reaching plans and try to execute them; but just to believe that GOD is prepared to work through our hands, speak by our life, dwell in our bodies, and fulfil in us the good purposes of his will.

Be full of GOD'S rest.

Let there be no hurry, precipitation, or fret; yield to God's hands, that He may mold thee: hush thy quickly throbbing pulse!

So shalt thou build to good and lasting purpose.     
      
~F. B. Meyer~

Run With Patience

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,  

O run with patience is a very difficult thing. Running is apt to suggest the absence of patience, the eagerness to reach the goal.

We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet, I do not think the invalid's patience the hardest to achieve.

There is a patience which I believe to be harder--the patience that can run.

To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still:

It is the power to work under a stroke; to have a great weight at your heart and still to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily task. It is a Christlike thing!

Many of us would nurse our grief without crying if we were allowed to nurse it.

The hard thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in bed, but in the street.

We are called to bury our sorrows, not in lethargic quiescence, but in active service--in the exchange, in the workshop, in the hour of social intercourse, in the contribution to another's joy.

There is no burial of sorrow so difficult as that; it is the "running with patience."

This was Thy patience, O Son of man! It was at once a waiting and a running--a waiting for the goal, and a doing of the lesser work meantime.

I see Thee at Cana turning the water into wine lest the marriage feast should be clouded.

I see Thee in the desert feeding a multitude with bread just to relieve a temporary want.

All, all the time, Thou wert bearing a mighty grief, unshared, unspoken.

Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee.

I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow--a minister to others' joy.

My patience will be perfect when it can work in the vineyard. 

~George Matheson~

When all our hopes are gone, 'Tis well our hands must keep toiling on For others' sake:

For strength to bear is found in duty done; And he is best indeed who learns to make The joy of others cure his own heartache."

Abiding In Obedience, In Love

John 15:10  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
 
These things cannot be parted -- abiding in obedience and abiding in the love of Jesus.

A life under the rule of Christ can alone prove that we are the objects of our LORD's delight.

We must keep our LORD's command if we would bask in His love. If we live in sin we cannot live in the love of Christ.

Without the holiness which pleases GOD we cannot please Jesus.

He who cares nothing for holiness knows nothing of the love of Jesus.

Conscious enjoyment of our LORD's love is a delicate thing.

It is far more sensitive to sin and holiness than mercury is to cold and heat.

When we are tender of heart and careful in thought, lip, and life to honor our LORD Jesus, then we receive tokens of His love without number.

If we desire to perpetuate such bliss we must perpetuate holiness.

The LORD Jesus will not hide His face from us unless we hide our face from Him. Sin makes the cloud which darkens our Sun:

If we will be watchfully obedient and completely consecrated we may walk in the light, as GOD is in the light, and have as sure an abiding in the love of Jesus as Jesus has in the love of the Father.

Here is a sweet promise with a solemn "if," LORD, let me have this "if" in my hand; for as a key it opens this casket.

~Charles Spurgeoon~