IDOLS In The HEART

                                                 
Certain elders of Israel came to the prophet Ezekiel seeking guidance from the Lord. These men were not like many of the Israelites, who openly bowed their knees to idols. You would not find them in some idol temple, offering sacrifices to the false gods there. They were leaders of the people and they wanted to appear before everyone as godly men.

Outwardly, these elders had the appearance of men who had a heart for God and  wanted to know His word for their lives. That is the manner in which they approached Ezekiel but God revealed to Ezekiel what was in their hearts. He said to the prophet, Son of man, these men have set up idols in their heart and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face (Ezekiel 14:3). 

The Lord was saying, These men have come to you saying they want to hear a word from Me...that they want to walk in obedience to my commands. But they are lying! They have secret sins in their life.

These elders all had hidden, secret idolatry. Their hearts were in bondage to sins they indulged in behind closed doors. No one could tell this by their appearance. On the contrary, they came across not as pagans or idol worshipers, but as respected men of God going about their ministries.

A stumbling block of iniquity is any evil thing that stands between you and God..any enticement that robs you of a steadfast walk with Him. It is any besetting sin that causes you to waver in your faith; any desire that brings shame to your heart and to the name of Christ; any sin you cling to as you come to the Lord seeking guidance. You can come to God's house, raise your hands, worship Him loudly, and still have a stumbling block of iniquity in your heart.

Only by turning away from your idol in wholehearted repentance can you hear the true word of the Lord and receive clear, divine guidance. 

When you repent, the first thing that returns to you is your discernment, and the farther behind you leave your sin, the clearer you will see and hear God’s voice. He will become distinct, sure, speaking with the authority of truth.

~David Wilkerson~
 

True Service For The LORD

                             

Rev 2:19  I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first. 

 

Oh, that we should get some better idea of what the service of the Lord is than that it is platforms and pulpits and open-air meetings.

Beloved, service for the Lord is just as important when it is rendering some kindly act of helpful service to some rather depressed child of God in the ordinary domestic things of daily life; just as valuable as getting on the platform and giving a message.

You see it is strengthening the hands of the Lord's children, it is coming in to check the crushing overweight of the adversary, coming alongside to lift up the testimony in some life or home where the enemy is trying to crush the testimony out – and the testimony is something maintained in domestic relationships, in family life, private life.

There are too many who want to give up their domestic service and go to Bible College, failing to recognize that that service there may be just as valuable to the Lord as their going out to the mission field. It is spiritual, not technical, not organized, and you may be as much a priest of the Lord in going round to some home tomorrow where the enemy is pressing in, and giving a practical hand in helping with the washing, as you may be a priest in standing on the platform....

There are many priests of God whose voices have never been heard in public, who have never been seen in a public way, who are unknown, hidden very often in the assembly and yet in secret history fulfilling a most valuable ministry. Get adjusted over this thing.

We have to come to the point where we deliberately decide as to whether the Lord is worthy of this, and abandon ourselves to it because of our appreciation of Him, the Master. You see, this servant abandons himself freely, voluntarily, for all time to the service of his master because he has come to love his master.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Message Of The Cross

The sin of idolatry brought down God's awful wrath on His own people. It angered Him more than any other sin in the Old Testament, so much that He declared: The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger (Jeremiah 7:18).

This is God's declaration against idolatry in the Old Testament and  He hates idolatry just as much today. It brings down His wrath on any generation, including this modern one.

A new idolatry is sweeping across our world right now. No we don't  see people kneeling down before carved images anymore; instead this modern idolatry seduces multitudes by its subtlety and cleverness. Yet it angers God more than any Old Testament idolatry.

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:6-8).

This other gospel that Paul mentions is a message of salvation without the cross. The great idolatry of our day is the casting aside of the message of the cross of Jesus Christ.

The cross including its demands and hopes is the very heart of the gospel. Any worship, any fellowship, anything calling itself church is blatant idolatry if the cross is not at its center. Such worship is of another spirit entirely and God will have nothing to do with it. Without the cross, all that is left is chaff a perverted gospel, something from the pit of hell. It is more insulting to the Lord than the idolatry of Israel.

And I if I be lifted up from the earth
will draw all men unto me John 12:32. This lifting up from the earth Jesus mentions is His crucifixion. He was lifted up before the whole world on the cross~an image of His great sacrifice for our sins.

~David Wilkerson~

The LORD Will NOT Fail You

                            

Deut 31:8  And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.

If we are seeking to go on with God to any degree beyond that which is commonly accepted as a true Christian life; if we are called to pioneer the way for any further advance in Spiritual life or Divine service; if we are given a vision of God's will and purpose not seen by the general mass of God's people or even the larger number of the servants of God ours will be a lonely way.

There are many other ways in which we may feel aloneness. It may be for geographical reasons or it may be because of an inward experience through which we are passing; an experience or phase which cannot be shared by another, even the one closest to us.

All these and other reasons may respectively become our "wilderness" in which Satan comes, and, while there is a basic occasion, his business is to push things into the extra realm of untruth and tell us that we are actually and utterly alone. It is not a rare thing for him to tell a child of God that God has left him or her.

Elijah verily believed that he was the only one left in faithfulness to God, and he repeated his complaint several times, "I only am left."

He had lost sight of the possibility that the prophets reported by Obadiah to have been hidden might still be in that underground faithfulness, or some of them at least. But the Lord knew better and told him of seven thousand unsurrendering saints who would not capitulate to Jezebel or Baal.

The fact is that what Elijah believed was positively not true. If we look at things horizontally we shall only see so far, but if we look from heaven we shall see much more.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Satan Is There To Make God A Liar

                                      
You notice what happened in the Garden:
Satan was there to make God a liar. Jesus said that Satan "is a liar, and the father thereof" (John 8:44), and he was there in the Garden to make God a liar, Did he do it? Mark you, this is something very important for us to notice today, for this is always Satan's way. He did not accept the situation in the Garden, and he never does accept a situation. There will come a time when he will have to accept a situation and will not be able to do anything about it, but all through the ages he has refused to accept this situation and has told a lie. So man has fallen a victim to the lie of Satan.

What is Satan's lie in connection with life?
He offers false life, another kind of life that looks like the true one. Satan falsifies true life, and, instead of being spiritual life, it is just soul life. Do you know the difference between spiritual life and soul life?

Satan attacked the soul life of Adam.
You know what the soul is, do you not? It is your reason, your emotions, your will. Satan began by REASONING with Adam, and, oh, what a dangerous thing it is to argue with Satan! 

Never reason with the devil, or, in other words, do not listen to his arguments! There is a sting in his tail! So Satan first came to man's reason and started an argument: "Yea, hath God said?" (Genesis 3:1). Immediately a question about God was lodged in the mind. There is a terrible destiny bound up with that question!

Then Satan appealed to Adam's FEELINGS, and, pointing to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he said: 'You see how lovely and full of juice that fruit is! How much it is to be desired!' So Adam looked at the fruit and said: 'How lovely! I think I would like some of that.' His emotions went out to it, and when Satan has got your mind and your emotions, it is not far to your WILL! The next thing was that Adam took the fruit. He used his will, and the damage was done.

It is all symbolic, but, you see, it contains eternal principles. The whole kingdom and reign of Satan are built upon that basis. The mind, the heart and the will of humanity are captured by the devil, but it is false life. What about all the emotion in the world, even in Christianity? 

There is a vast difference between spiritual, eternal life, and soul life. There is such a thing as false life, and that thing is the master-stroke of Satan! You will remember that there was a time in the history of Israel in the wilderness when certain sons of Aaron brought false fire and offered it upon God's altar. You know what happened! You know all about God's jealousy. There is a vast amount of false fire in this world today. It looks like true life, true fire, what is of God, but there is a lie in it, and the fruit of that tree is bitter fruit in the end.

I think this is a time in the world's history when we need to understand this more than ever. How can we discern the difference between the true life and the false life? Well, I think John is the great messenger of this, because his writings were particularly in this connection. He wrote in a time when everything in Christianity was being falsified. There was Christ and anti-Christ. In fact, there were many antichrists, for many false spirits had gone abroad. It was a time when Christians were being deceived, and John, writing for that time, said: "The anointing which ye received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you" (1 John 2:27). 

In effect, John was saying: 'By the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of the true life, you will be able to discern between the true and the false.' Even when they look so much alike, the Spirit in you will say: 'There is something not true about this!'

I think that one of the things that indicates whether it is true or false is whether man made it or not. You see, those sons of Aaron MADE their incense, and they did not make it of the same ingredients as those with which the true incense was made. It was something which looked like the true, but it was false, and the Spirit of God knew the difference. We have to be very careful that we do not create false fire, for that is the danger of strong personalities. Do you notice how many of these things which look like life have come from strong personalities? They are uncrucified Christian men! Is that a contradiction in terms? No, the Cross has to divide between soul and spirit, and if you see the fire coming from strong, forceful soulish men, you have reason to doubt the reality of it. When the true fire comes, it is always through crucified men.

I think the Apostle Peter could have created a lot of false fire. He was a man who was always trying to get things going! He would rush in in front of someone else, and would even tell the Lord Jesus where to get on and where to get off! It would have been a poor lookout for Christianity if it had come through Peter! But Peter had to go to the Cross, and the true fire of the Holy Spirit did not come until he was an utterly broken man.

Well, perhaps I have said enough on that matter, but it is something that should be an instruction to us in these days. We do verily need to know the difference between the true life and the false life, for Satan's master-work is to imitate God.
~T. Austin Sparks~

FLEE IDOLATRY

                            

1Co 10:14  Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.KJV
 

Shun keep clear away from, avoid by flight if need be any sort of idolatry of loving or venerating anything more than God. 

1 Corinthians 10:14 AMP

There are many things which are not only harmless but good in themselves, which have, nevertheless, been allowed to take the place of the Lord Himself, and good things can therefore embody the principle of idolatry in the one in whom the devotion is found.

Touch some Christians, or Christian institutions, and let the touch be even in relation to something more of the Lord Himself, and you will find an uprising of jealous regard for the institution which utterly blinds to that possibility of an extra measure of the Lord Himself.

You can be so devoted to a denomination, a missionary society, a piece of Christian work, that there is no room for any extra measure of the Lord. The thing itself has become the end, the object for which you live, and when the Lord wants to get you moved on into something more of Himself, the obstacle is that good Christian work, association, institution, tradition, connection.

Yes, and that is idolatry in principle, and we see from history how the Lord again and again has had to smite with smashing blows things which in themselves were good, in order to save His people unto Himself personally....

What is He after? It is Himself which He is seeking to establish as the object of man's life, and not the things that have relation to Himself: and I say again, you meet something intensely fierce if you touch a thing, even though you are touching it maybe with a view to getting people to move on with the Lord Himself.

To put that in the other way, if your appeal for moving on with the Lord seems to people to involve their having to move away from this or that or some other thing, then there is warfare; which shows that Satan in his eternal campaign of idolatry, has got a footing amongst Christians in relation to things which take the place of the Lord Himself, good things though they be in themselves; and you find, if you are spiritually sensitive, that you are not just encountering the established institutions, but you are encountering a terrific spiritual force.

Is that true? It is true. Had I never come up against it, never would I have believed the terrific force there is lying behind Christian institutions if your ministry touches them. You meet something which turns upon you, and it is not just the thing or the people. It is something that threatens your very life, to slay, and this in principle and essence, beloved, is idolatry; because its ultimate effect is that even the Lord cannot have what His heart is set upon and get His people spiritually where He wants them, because they are so bound up with His things. They are not able to discriminate between His things and Himself.

~T. Austin Sparks~

WHO Hindered YOU?

Gal 5:7  Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? 

Something had broken in and interrupted their running in the spiritual race. This was extremely serious and disturbed Paul to the depths of his being. 

It seems that in the case of the Galatians it was again the natural man, but this time in the realm of natural emotions. They seem to have been of that temperamental constitution which corresponds to Christ's words in the parable about seed falling into shallow soil. The seed was received quickly and earnestly, but did not go on to produce a harvest.

There are some people who make an enthusiastic start in this way and make quite a stir about it, but then do not go steadily on. These Galatians were like that; they made a tremendous response; they loudly protested their devotion; and then they were very quick to drop out of the race. Why? Because they lived on their emotions, on their feelings, and these were changeable. This may well be a matter of temperament, but in fact something of such a characteristic can be found in most of us. We respond to an appeal, come under the power of a great emotion, and then slack off.

In the words of the Lord Jesus: "When tribulation or persecution ariseth... he is offended" (Matthew 13:21).

Clearly, then, if you and I are going to persevere to the end we must have a greater power than that of our natural emotional life. The only hope is that it may be true of us, as of Paul: "The love of Christ constraineth" (2 Corinthians 5:14). There is all the difference between the natural and the spiritual in this matter of the energy of love. This word translated 'constraineth' is the same one used over the arrest of Jesus when it says: "the men that held Jesus" (Luke 22:63).

So it is that the love of Christ should hold or grip us, conquering our natural emotions by the mighty power of the Spirit. Our feelings come and go. They may be strong at times but they can also grow very weak. If we do not know something of the mighty grip of Christ's love, we will never go right through to the end of this strenuous race.

After all it is the love of Christ which makes for the fullness of Christ. If we finally come to that fullness it can only be by the constraint and holding power of His love. "Ye were running well: who did hinder you?" The answer is, "You ran in the strength of your own emotions, you ran as your enthusiastic response to God's call because it affected your feelings for the time." 

The letter to the Galatians is devoted to emphasizing the place of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, for He alone can supply the necessary energy of love for us to go on running well.

~T. Austin Sparks~

High Ground a Defense

Psa 125:1 They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.

Psa 125:2  As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.

Mountains? And the Lord like the mountains? What is that? It is fortification, it is strength, it is protection. And what is the point of fortification if there is nothing against which to be fortified?

Away back in Old Testament times, when the people came into the land, the remarkable thing is that they occupied the higher places more than the lower. You will find that their towns, cities and villages are almost all of them upon some high place; the reason being that their enemies, who had chariots and horses, had their strength on the level, in the plain, but they could do nothing with chariots and horses against mountains. And therefore the safety, security and fortification of the Lord’s people was by being on high places.

That is a parable. If the enemy can get you on to his level he has beaten you. So he must pull you down, he must get you down, he must get you to accept something less than God’s full place and mind for you, and then he will undo you.

That is what he has done with the church, speaking of the church now in very general terms. He has pulled it down to this world level; he has reduced it to the level of things here, and he has absolutely disintegrated it, broken it up and divided it and robbed it of its power.

The church which is revealed to us in the New Testament is always on high ground.... In Ephesians, it is “in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.”

It is a great power to be on high ground, it is a great defensive, protective factor; the enemy can do little with you if you keep up there and refuse to come down. Nehemiah found that to be so, when they said, “Come down and let us confer”; and he said, “I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down” (Neh. 6:3). It is a principle operating.

~T. Austin Sparks~

GOD'S Silence

                                                    
I think there is nothing so startling in all the graces of GOD as His quietness. When men have raged untruths in His Name, when they have used the assumed authority of the Son of GOD to put to death His real children, when they have with calloused art twisted the Scriptures into fables and lies, when they have explained the order of His creation in unfounded theories while boasting the support of rational science,when they have virtually talked Him right out of His universe, when they, using powers He grants them, claim universal autonomy and independence, He, this great Silent GOD, says nothing.

His tolerance and love for His creature is such that, having spoken in Christ, in conscience, in code of law,He waits for men to leave off their bawling and turn for a moment to listen to His still, small voice of Spirit. 

Now, after so long a time of restrained voice, bearing in Almighty meekness the blasphemies of His self-destroying creatures, now--how shall break upon the ears, consciousnesses, hearts, and minds of reprobate man the Voice of one so long silent? 

It shall thunder with the force of offended righteousness, strike with lightning bolts upon the seared consciences; roar as the long-crouched lion upon dallying prey; leap upon, batter, destroy and utterly consume the vain reasonings of proud human kind; ring as the battle shout of a strong, triumphant, victory-tasting warrior; strike terror and gravity to souls more forcefully than tortured screams in the dead of night.

O GOD, what shall be the first tones of that voice again on earth? And what their effect? Wonder and fear, denizens of dust, for the LORD Himself shall descend from heaven with a battle cry, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet blast of GOD Himself, made more terrible, if that could be, by the long-suffering of His silence.
~Jim Elliot~

To Live Is Christ To Die Is Gain

                              

Php 1:21  For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 

I wonder very often if the fact that our tremendous knowledge about Christ, our tremendous doctrinal apprehension, failing to lead us into triumphant joy, failing to result in something of this contagious spirit of triumph that was about Paul, does not imply that it is something which is not Christ personally with which we are occupied and taken up. 

We are getting to know Christ purely by a book knowledge, and a Conference knowledge, an address knowledge, an historic knowledge; that really, apart from our Conferences, our books, our studies, our addresses, and all these things; in the secret place, in the secret history back of it all, we are not living on Christ Himself, and out from Christ, and knowing Christ. So much of our Christian life is a matter of teaching, of things about Him.

We recognize the simplicity of that word, but we are quite sure that you understand what we mean, because you have known a very great deal about Christ in doctrine, and then you have discovered something of the Lord Himself, and you have discovered the tremendous difference.

There is nothing more uplifting than to come into a personal experience of the Lord, a knowledge of the Lord, in a living way, to have Christ ministered to your heart by the Holy Spirit. Then you discover that there is something there which is more than all your suffering, and which makes suffering worthwhile, and which robs suffering of its deadly sting.

It is Christ. Paul lived on Christ: “For me to live is Christ.” Now, what might have been put afterward? For me to live is to be able to go to meetings! For me to live is to be able to have fellowship with other believers! If I am cut off from them I cannot live! If I cannot go to the meetings I cannot live! You can put in anything else: For me to live is to have encouragement in the work, to see results for my labors!

You can cover a great deal of ground, if you are going to cover the ground of our demands in order to be triumphant. But Paul looked out, and he saw his work being injured, damaged, outwardly destroyed, his old friends being alienated and led to doubt and suspect him.

Oh, he saw enough to take the heart out of any man at the end of such a life, but he did not say: for me to live is to see my life work standing as a monument, intact; to have all my old friends faithful and around me; to know that my message has had universal acceptance and appreciation! No! “For me to live is (when all these things, and many others, have gone) Christ!”

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Power Of His Resurrection

But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: 2Co 1:9                    

We shall not be able to raise ourselves any more than we can crucify ourselves, but we must recognize that the Lord's dealings with us are with that in view.

In order to display the power of His resurrection, He will very often have to take the attitude toward us of letting things get well beyond all human power to remedy or save, of allowing things to go so far that there is no other power in all the universe that can do anything whatever to save the situation. He will allow death, disintegration to work, so that nothing, nothing in the universe is of any avail, except the power of His resurrection.

We shall come to the place where Abraham came, who became the great type of faith which moved right into resurrection: "He considered his own body now as good as dead" (Rom. 4:19). That is the phrase used by the apostle about Abraham: "as good as dead." And Paul came into that: "We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead" (2 Cor. 1:9).

Whatever else men may be able to do in the realm of creation, they stop short when death has actually taken place; they can do no more.

Resurrection is God's act, and God's alone. Men can do very many things when they have got life, but when there is no life it is only God who can do anything.

And God will allow His Church and its members oft-times to get into such situations as are altogether beyond human help, in order that He may give the display, which is His own display, in which no man has any place to glory.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Blood Touched Consecrated Ear

We read of the consecration of Aaron and his sons, and the placing of the blood upon the tip of their right ears~the ear consecrated by means of the blood. The blood, as you know was always the means of discrimination and separation; all that upon which the blood was sprinkled was separated unto the Lord, consecrated to Him.

The blood - speaking of an end made to a whole regime and provision made for an entirely new order of things - the blood stood between. You hardly need me to illustrate that from Scripture, for there is so much. Perhaps the outstanding Old Testament illustration would be the blood of the Lamb sprinkled on the door posts and the lintel of the homes of the Hebrews in Egypt.

By that sprinkled blood they were marked out as separate from the Egyptians, and as a people with an entirely new future, a new history. The blood separated and the blood laid the foundation for something altogether new - that from that passover they were constituted God's people in a new way. That is the principle of the blood, that it separates from one system and makes a way for another.

Now here, in the priesthood, we have that very strongly emphasized. There was the blood of the ram of consecration, and placed upon the ear, it meant quite simply that the blood was going to challenge, test and judge every presentation to the mind through the ear. 

The blood would interrogate everything coming to the inner life through the ear, as to where it came from, as to the nature of it. The blood would judge it and say, That is not of God; that is not according to the mind of the Lord; that belongs to the old creation which is in alliance with sin; that springs from the original source where Satan spoke into the ear.

The blood thus would judge everything, condemning what was not of God, and keeping the way open for the Lord - a very simple lesson, but a very powerful one. The Lord Jesus said, Take heed what ye hear (Mark 4:24). Priesthood here means the spiritual man, the man who is wholly unto the Lord, completely at the Lord's disposal; and the spiritual man is going to be very careful what he allows himself to hear, what he allows to enter into his mind, into his inner life, and become a part of him inwardly through his ear. He is not going to listen to everything. He is going to judge what he hears and to refuse quite a lot. 

Now that may apply to a large number of things which it would be unwise to try to catalog. We can do unspeakable damage to our own spiritual life, and make it impossible for the Lord to speak to us, if we allow ourselves to listen to that which is not of the Lord, that which is contrary to Him.

The enemy has gained great power for his kingdom through the ear of the world; he has a great hold on men along the line of hearing. He uses many things - it may be certain types of music, or ways of speaking. The consecrated servant of the Lord does not allow that sort of thing voluntarily.

We are in this world, and we cannot avoid hearing many things that we should not wish to hear; but the important matter is not the sounds around us that strike upon our outward ear, but our reaction thereto, whether we consent to what we hear. Do we judge it and inwardly revolt against it and refuse it, or do we lend an ear to it? 

I think this may specially apply to what we allow ourselves to hear about people. Untold damage is done by gossip and by criticism. Now, there is no point in having lips to talk if there are no ears to hear, and sometimes the sealing of unwise and uncontrolled lips may come by a refusal to listen.

The priest is called upon to refuse to listen to a whole realm of things, to judge it and say, I do not want to hear that; I am not listening to it, I am not accepting it.

You can, I am sure, see what a terrible lot of mischief exists today even amongst real children of God, caused by rumors, by talk, by passing on reports, by interpretations given to things; and how susceptible we are to that sort of thing!

Well, this blood-touched ear, the consecrated ear, conveys a fundamental lesson.  It refuses to accept and to allow to pass into the inner life a whole world of things. 
~T. Austin Sparks~

The Principle Of Safety

                                        

Whenever we are being faced with some new and different course, some fresh proposition or position, there is one all-governing question that we should ask, and which we should take ample time to ponder and pray over seriously.

That question is~Does this thing before me stand in direct line with the full purpose of God, as revealed not in a fragment but in the fulness of His Word?

God has left us in no doubt that He has a clearly defined purpose in view as the ultimate object of all His dealings. He has also made it abundantly clear what that purpose is. Further it is distinctly shown that believers are called according to his purpose and that they are to make their calling and election sure.

One who was an aged and advanced believer, and a greatly used servant of God, said toward the end of his course that his great concern was that he might apprehend that for which he had been apprehended by Christ Jesus.

It is the business and duty of every true Christian to study so as to be quite clear as to what that Eternal Purpose is. Having done so everything that arises to engage us must be brought to the judgment bar of that purpose, and interrogated in its light. God will not cut across our path, or give us particular light at any fork in the road if we have not been diligent in this quest or faithful to the light given.

It just will not do to allow ourselves to be influenced by questions of comparative right or wrong good or bad, permissibility, desirability, expediency, or policy. Nor must ambition, soul-gratification, enlarged prospects for the Lord, wider acceptance in Christianity, or any such thing, colour our judgment or affect our decision. Advantage and cost are ruled out here as deciding factors.

One question, and one alone, will decide tragedy or glory: Does this that is before me stand directly in line with the full purpose of God? When the end is reached, the full story told, the sum taken, how much that is bound up with this will be stripped off, as having no real substance with what is Christ, and therefore fail to be carried over into the eternal? What will the River carry away, and what will emerge on the other side? This was the big question that Paul put to the Corinthians.

In all the generations of this dispensation God is at work, seeking to secure a maximum of eternal value in accordance with eternal purpose in His elect. His discipline is to sift out the chaff, the merely perishable, and store up the imperishable. When He has secured in heaven an adequate and commensurate measure of that which is His Son out of all these generations, the terminus of the age will be brought about, the world purged by fire, and that accumulated eternal value be brought in with the elect, to be the governing character of the ages of the ages. 

Because so much hangs upon this issue, the course of the Purpose is beset by every means and effort for its frustration.

The peril or snare will be cunningly and ingeniously adapted to the prey. What would capture some would make no appeal to others. The most spiritual will be presented with what appears to be most spiritual. Our particular temperament will be our peculiar danger. We shall have to, ever and always, be governed by principle, and not by feelings, preferences, arguments, or natural appeal. Intellectual palliatives, emotional ecstasies, activity gratifications must be suspected or challenged.

The one question must be paramount~Where does this lead? Does it essentially and intrinsically relate to the one supreme purpose of God?

~T. Austin Sparks~

The 1965 Prophecy

This Prophetic Word Was Spoken By Stanley Frodisham Who Was A Personal Friend Of Smith Wigglesworth. It Was Given In Chicago In 1965 Five Years Before He Died. This Word Is Coming To Pass Even Now. It Is A Pertinent Word For This Day In Which We Live. We Pray All Will Heed It.
 
Deception Is So Subtle Now It Is Hard To Tell Between The True And False That Is Why Being In The Word Of God and Being In An Intimate Relationship With God Is So Important. Don't Be Deceived!